


Monster Summer Mash: Sans/Reader Edition

by MarshmarrowSans



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: #monstersummermash, ... Hopefully., ... with one angsty chapter., Angst, Best Friends to Lovers, Drabbles, Established Relationship, F/M, First Kisses, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Gen, LITERALLY, M/M, Married Life, Monster Summer Mash, Mutual Pining, Oops!! i angsted!, Pining, Pre-Relationship, Resets, Sans and reader are helplessly in love in literally every chapter tbh, Sharing Clothes, Slice of Life, Slow Dancing, So you and Sans are gonna be friends one chapter and married with kids the next, Wedding, You and Sans get married!!!, and tons of other cute sappy coupley stuff, awkward crushes, daily updates, married with kids, ¯_(ツ)_¯
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 23:34:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 23,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14758407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarshmarrowSans/pseuds/MarshmarrowSans
Summary: There's an Undertale Secret Santa summer event, and it has a side event called the monster summer mash where you fulfill daily summer-themed prompts.So get ready for 30 straight days of short, summer-themed Sans/Reader drabbles!





	1. Summer Nights and Starlight

**Author's Note:**

> ... Unless, of course, I get thrown into school again around finals week and can't keep up. But I'll try my best because I really want to do this!

Silence.  Floating.  Air in your lungs tinged with moisture and chlorine and lingering warmth that smelled like concrete.  Nothing in your view but the starlit sky above you.  You really felt like you were in some sort of chemical-permeated outer space, alone except for the gentle brushing of skeletal fingertips against yours.

 

Going swimming at night, while removing the factor of cooling down from the hot sun, also meant that the two of you got to be alone together.

 

Silence.  And then you heard his muffled voice, but couldn’t make out the words.  Your ears were underwater when he spoke.  You righted yourself and looked beside you, to where your skeletal best friend was stretched out on his back, in the same position as you, right beside you.  He turned his head to glance back at you with an expression you couldn’t comprehend.  All you could tell was that he was waiting for you to say something.  Something specific.  Something he was nervous you wouldn’t say.  He oriented himself vertically, too.  Released the gentle upward gravity he’d been enacting on himself and let his toes hold him up against the bottom of the pool.  And he waited.  
  
“…  Sans, I couldn’t hear a word of that.”  
  
“yeah i know.”  
  
You broke out in a smile first.  Then he did, at least until you loaded back your arm and splashed him with a big wave of water.  
  
“Okay, stinker.  What did you say?”  
  
“nothin’.”  
  
“What.  Did you.  Say,” you demanded.  Trying to intimidate him (could you ever?), you pushed yourself closer to him through the water.  “Did you call me some kind of mean name?”  
  
“what?  no way.  you’re my best friend, dude.  why would i do that?”

 

You swam closer.  Uncomfortably close.  So close he could feel the warmth of your breath.  He averted his gaze and backed away from you, until he felt his back hit the edge of the pool.  And then he had nowhere to go.  You boxed him in there, one arm on each side of him.  He couldn’t look you in the eyes, so he looked down instead.  
  
“Did yooou…  say that this swimsuit makes my butt look big?”  
  
“what—look i know i can be honest to a fault sometimes but—okay look.  why are you assuming i would say something rude about you, if given a chance to be entirely honest, when you couldn’t hear me?”  
  
You shrugged, and told him the first thing that came to mind.  “It’s what most people do.”

 

Silence.  Chlorine.  Your best friend, staring down at the water.  Then staring up at you with a sincere, yet mysterious smile.  
  
“not me.”  
  
“Then what did you say…?”  You pouted at him irresistibly, and began to whine in the same way.  “Sans.  Pleeeease?”  
  
“aaah.  it was nothing.  it was stupid.  it was…  it was just…”

 

You didn’t push him.  Just gave him the same expectant look he’d been giving you only a minute or two ago.

 

“…  something i had to get off my chest.  about myself.  something that's been rattling in my skull for awhile.  i mean…”  He pulled his arms out of the water and laid them out on the edge of the pool behind him, reclining backwards.  His gaze traveled wistfully to the sky above you.

 

“haven’t you ever had a secret that just made you wanna scream it to a world that couldn’t hear it at all?”  
  
You snorted out a soft laugh, and were about to remark flippantly something like ‘that’s deep,’ but you stopped yourself.  And you really thought about it.

 

You thought about your feelings for him.  
  
“…  Yeah.  Yeah, I think I understand exactly what you mean.”


	2. Family Weekend

Weekends were always the _best_.  Even since before you and Sans started dating, you had a full-time job, Monday through Friday.  That, alone, had given you enough reason to name Saturday and Sunday as your favorite days of the week—they were the days that he got to see you the most.

 

That sentiment became much more strongly emphasized after the two of you had kids.

 

After that, you still had your job, same as before, but Sans had a whole new one.  It was one of the hardest and most important jobs in the world: being the stay-at-home parent and doing the majority of raising your children.  It was difficult.  Stressful.  Sometimes it made him feel like he was fucking it all up.  Sometimes it made him feel like the kids hated him, because Destiny threw a tantrum where she screamed such words at the top of her lungs, or Sitka made a huge mess of the living room, or Lucida wouldn’t stop crying no matter what he tried to do to placate her.

 

…  It was the best job in the world.  And every day, he woke up to you next to him in bed, remembered that your three darling children were only one room over, and thanked everything in the universe for aligning just right to make it all happen this way and not one of billions of other much, much worse possibilities.

 

“Dad!  Dad!  Dad Dad Dad Dad Dad--!”  
  
You groaned, turning over in bed so that your front was facing your husband and your back was facing your overly-excited skeleton son.  
  
“You heard the little man,” you whispered to him.  “Your son needs his dad right now.”  You tried to pick him up and turn over so that he was on the side of the bed closer to where Sitka had his hands up on the mattress, but Sans wouldn’t budge.  He was using his magic to pull himself down, essentially making himself impossibly heavy.  
  
“before nine in the morning,” grumbled your lazy sweetheart, “he’s _your_ son.”  
  
“Don’t you loosely quote Lion King at me, mister.  Up and at ‘em.”  You tried to turn him over again, and this time he let you.  He ended up on his side, face to face with his young son.  
  
“heya kiddo.  i can’t imagine you just came in like that to say good morning. whaddya need?”  
  
“Breakfast!”  Seeing now that both of his parents were awake, Sitka clambered up on to the bed and sat on his dad’s legs.  “Pleeease, Dad?  You make the BEST food.”  
  
You looked at him over your shoulder.  “Gee.  Thanks, son.”  
  
“I-I mean!  You’re a good cook too!  It’s just!  Dad usually cooks, and, and…”  
  
“…  And he smothers everything in ketchup.”  
  
“Well yeah.  Ketchup is only the best thing EVER.”  
  
“awwwh,” Sans gushed.  “that’s my boy.”  
  
“Trust me.”  You rolled your eyes as you sat up and pushed the covers from over your body, “I am reminded every day that you and Sitka are undoubtedly father and son.  Between your obsession with ketchup and the constant co-conspiracy over the pranks you pull on the rest of us, it’s hard to forget.”  
  
“hey.  don’t blame genetics for the kid having good taste.  that’s all him.”  Sans, sufficiently buttered up by his son’s praise, willingly got out of bed and stepped into his usual pair of pink slippers.  “now howsabout you and your siblings let the ol’ breadwinner here sleep in while i make breakfast?”  
  
“…  Did…  you call me old?”  
  
“i mean.  you’re an adult.  you’ve got kids and a job.  yeah…  that makes you an old fart.”  
  
You threw your pillow at him, and he caught it with his usual impressive reflexes.  
  
“You’re OLDER than me, Sans!”  
  
“i know.  and i look it, too.”  
  
“Awwwh.  You look handsome, Sansy.”  
  
“well you look just as gorgeous as the first time i laid eyes on you.”  
  
“Ewww.  Stop flirting.  I want food!”  Sitka latched on to his dad’s hand and started to pull.  “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!”  
  
“alriiight, alriiight,” Sans followed him along at his usual pace: slowly.  And he kept his eyes on you even as he went out your bedroom door.  Just as he disappeared into the hallway, he called back to you.

 

“bet these weekends make you miss goin’ to work!”  
  
You smiled and shook your head, pressing your cheek into your husband’s pillow, smelling his familiar scent and hearing his voice, along with the voices of all of your kids, down the hall.  Nobody could hear you, but you whispered into the empty room, “Never.”


	3. Ignite the Sky! It's Fireworks!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sans has a big fat crush on you and you are oblivious.

“can’t believe you dropped a hundred bucks just to make my brother happy.”  
  
“And Undyne, Sans.  And Undyne.”  
  
The two of you were sitting in the trunk of your car, legs dangling over the rear bumper.  Your toes brushed the ground, while his didn’t even come close.  He kept kicking one of his slippers off and having to slide down off the bumper for a moment to retrieve it.  
  
“alright.  so you dropped fifty bucks, twice.  once to make my brother happy, and another time to make my brother’s best friend happy.  that makes you sound, like.  twice as cool.”  
  
“It’s really not a big deal, Sans.  Find something better about me to gush over.”  You smiled in that cool, gentle way he just couldn’t tear his eyes from, and leaned back, bracing yourself with your hands a little bit behind you.  You were gazing at the two tall thrill-seekers as they set fire to another firework from the bundle you’d purchased for them.  This one created bursts of every color of the rainbow, before a grand finale with white sparks shooting several feet into the air.  Undyne let out what almost sounded like some kind of war scream, and Papyrus had never looked so happy.  “…  You can’t put a price on the happiness of the people you love.”  
  
“tell me about it.”  Sans put his hand down next to yours.  The way his phalanges overlapped just a little bit with your fingers made your heart skip a beat.  “i hate being poor as dirt.  every time we go out and do something, i always wanna buy you stuff at gift stores.  like when we went to that science and technology exhibit?  totally wanted to buy you that little salt-powered robot.  i know you would’ve loved that.”  
  
“Well…  Not as much as I loved just going to the museum with you.”  
  
He turned his face away from you, but not before you caught him blushing.  “…  thanks for saying that.”  
  
“I mean it.  Your friendship is enough for me.”  
  
He only looked at you again when you put an arm around his shoulders.  He seemed contemplative.  
  
“Do you hear me?” you asked meaningfully.  “Your friendship is enough.  Always.”  
  
“yeah,” he told you quietly.  “for me, too, i guess.”  
  
Why did he sound sad?  
  
“…  Did I say something wrong?”  
  
“nah,” he responded so quickly he almost cut you off.  “’sall good.”  
  
“There’s fireworks, apple pie, hot dogs.  Don’t be sad on the Fourth of July.”  
  
“i’m not.”  
  
“You sure?”  
  
“sure as sure can be.  you’re a worrier.”  
  
“Heyyy.”  You cuffed him, lightly as you could, over the head.  “I resemble that remark.  Seriously though, if I said something out of line, just—”  
  
“GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY!  SANS, HUMAN, LOOK!  SOMEBODY PUT ENORMOUS FIREWORKS!  IN THE SKY!”  
  
The fireworks show Papyrus was referring to was actually a few blocks away, at a nearby park.  You couldn’t get tickets to go to the actual show, but you knew it was happening, and you knew it was close enough to watch with them and enjoy, even without tickets.  You broke out in a grin, and unexpectedly, you felt Sans put his arm around your waist and scoot closer to you.  He pulled up his legs and folded them at his side, eyes fixed on the new spectacle.  
  
Maybe you _had_ been worrying over nothing.  He looked so happy now.


	4. Naps and Lazy Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some Sans/Reader early relationship bliss~

You were always curious why the balmy heat of summertime made everyone so much more lazy. As if Sans could get any lazier. The only difference was, now you felt more compelled to be lazy with him and not try to drag him out of bed. It was 2 in the afternoon, and neither of you had even gotten out of bed except to use the restroom, and for one of the first times in your lives, it wasn’t out of depression. It was out of a love for what was in it for you if you stayed in that bed.

You and Sans were situated on your mattress in the shape of a capital T. He lay widthwise, spread across all of your pillows, and you lay lengthwise, using his stomach as one. For a skeleton, he was weirdly soft.

“Sans. Can’t we play a game where your weird lie-detecting abilities don’t consistently allow you to win?”

“babe. you made one of your two truths that you’ve 'kissed a monster before.’ while i’m layin’ right here. did you think i forgot the entire last two months?”

“Well, no… I just always know you’re going to pick out my lie anyways, so.” You looked up at him and smiled. “May as well be cute with you when given the opportunity.”

“you’re always cute.”

He put his hand in your hair, and you melted. You loved it when he did that, even though he had an awful tendency to get some of it stuck in the joints of his fingers.

“okay. we can play something else. how about the napping and cuddling game?”

Even knowing Sans, that still surprised you. “… We slept and cuddled for ten hours last night, vertebabe.”

“yeah but that’s sleeping. napping is totally different. c’mon, c’mere.”

You felt him start to sit up, so you lifted your head from his stomach. He turned and scooted forward until he was up against your back, a leg on either side of you. He wrapped his arms tight around your waist from behind. And then he flopped on his side with you and started to hardcore spoon you. His short little legs wrapped around you until he was clinging to you like a skeleton koala.

“see? you’re smiling,” Sans pointed out with his head tucked between your shoulders. You didn’t need to see his face to hear the smug tone in his voice.

You sighed, but accepted it. This was the life you signed up for when you told Sans how you felt about him and agreed to start dating him.

“… Okay. But tomorrow, we’re going swimming.”

“you can go swimming. i’ll just hang out at the poolside.” Sans yawned, long and low, as if he hadn’t already spent all day lazing around. “i gotta work on my tan.”

Of course, yawns were contagious, so you yawned, too. Maybe a nap wouldn’t be so bad… being so cozy and groggy was kind of nice.

“At least let me carry you on my back and paddle you around!”

“you just want an excuse to look at my bare bones, don’tcha?”

“Nooo!” you scoffed, but nodded your head up and down instead of side to side. “… Yeah.”

“heheh. you are too cute when you try and lie to me.”


	5. Lemonade Stand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sans, stop checking out the reader and get back to your vending job!

Ugh.  You knew you shouldn’t have started your morning jog so late.

 

You’d completely forgotten that today, the temperature was supposed to shoot into the hundreds.  Feeling lazy, and perhaps having stayed up just a little bit too late the night before, you’d decided to sleep in instead of getting a head start on your exercise.  And now the temperature was spiking into the nineties.  Fahrenheit.

 

The park was only a few blocks from your home, but you were certifiably wiped out by the time you got there, so you took a break.  Pressed your hands to your knees and took deep breaths.  Braced yourself against an oak tree and stretched.  Let the gentle breeze whisk the sweat from your skin and cool your body.  You would have been ready for the final stretch, except for one thing.  You were parched.

 

You looked desperately left and right.  No vending machines, no operating water fountains.  The only vendor you’d ever seen here was some dude at a hot dog stand.  
  
…  Except…  
  
When you looked now, the same dude was still there, but his stand had changed.  Marginally.  He’d lazily taped a piece of notebook paper with the words “lemonade 25c” scrawled on it in some kind of goofy lettering.  Was that… perfect hand-written comic sans?  
  
You approached, both out of intrigue at what was supposedly this guy’s handwriting and out of a desperate need for the beverage in question.  
  
“heya.”  
  
You tried not to let your shock register on your face.  You knew that monsters living on the surface now was a thing, but you still weren’t expecting the hot-dog-slash-lemonade vendor looking up at you to be a skeleton.  Much less one with such soft, rounded facial features!  
  
Come on, now.  Don’t be awkward, you begged yourself.  For once in your life, don’t be awkward.  
  
“…  Hi I like your sign.”  
  
Damn it.  
  
Still, he covered for what you lacked in eloquence.  “thanks, i know, it’s super creative.  you can have it for two bucks.”  
  
“…  What?”  
  
“the sign.  you said you like it.  i’ll sell it to ya for two bucks.”  
  
You figured, as a skeleton, he always had that big grin on his face.  But now that you looked at him, you could tell his grin had become just a little bigger and more genuine.  He was trying to joke with you.  Probably to set you at ease.  All of your tension came out at once in a breathy laugh.  
  
“Oh.  N-no, thanks.  But I’ll have some lemonade.  It’s a real scorcher today.”  
  
“hmmm,” he hummed in agreement.  But you couldn’t help but wonder if he could sense the extreme temperature at all.  He was…  he was wearing a thick hoodie more appropriate for Winter than for this time of year.  
  
You exchanged money for lemonade, but…  you didn’t want to leave just yet.  You weren’t sure why.  Probably just still too tired to want to jog the rest of the way back home.  
  
“…  So you usually sell hot dogs,” you remarked, in a feeble attempt to make conversation with him.  
  
“and you usually run through this park and back like a chicken with your head cut off.  like you did today.  but earlier.”  
  
You chuckled and thumbed the rim of your lemonade cup.  
  
…  He recognized you…?  Logically, that was probably to be expected.  You both frequented this place.  But you never really thought about other people looking at you and taking note of your presence and appearance.  You suddenly felt a little self-conscious.  You didn’t exactly feel at your most attractive on your morning jogs.  
  
…  Wait, why did you care if you looked good when he was watching?  It wasn’t like he was checking you out or anything!  Or maybe he was, but even then—ugh.  
  
“It’s called jogging, dude.  It can be fun and cathartic.  And it’s supposed to be good for you,” you explained, as if he were some alien who had never heard of the concept.  
  
“looks exhausting.  here, uh.”  He pushed another plastic cup of lemonade across the stand to you the moment you finished the one in your hand.  You started to reach for your pocket to pay him, but he quickly interjected, “oh, nah, this one’s on me.”  
  
“Oh…  thanks.”  You smiled a bit sheepishly and tucked some hair behind your ear.  Was that pity or flirting?  Or just being nice?  Damn it, that grinning face of his was so hard to read.  “Uh.  What’s your name?”  
  
“sans.  the skeleton.”  
  
“Well I could guess the skeleton part.” You introduced yourself in return and shook his hand.  His grip was firm and his palm was sweaty.  You kind of wanted to advise him to take that damn winter coat off if he was so warm, but if there was anything you were picking up from this guy so far, it was that he was… weird.  In a funny, cool way.  In a way like nobody who met him could ever forget him.  
  
“nice to finally meetcha.”  
  
Finally?  
  
“you know, if you wanna help man the station, i can cut you a deal and keep giving you lemonade for only 30 cents.”  
  
“…  But it was just 25…”  
  
“50.  final offer.”  
  
This Sans was one peculiar little guy.  A peculiar little guy you couldn’t help but want to learn a little bit more about.  A peculiar little guy you got the strong sense would be one of the coolest friends to have, once you got to know him a little better.  
  
You accepted his offer, slapping down a ten dollar bill and telling him to keep the change.


	6. It’s A Lovely Day For A Picnic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Are they or aren't they? ;D

“Hey Papyrus.  Can I ask you a possibly kinda invasive question?”  
  
“NOTHING WILL BEAT THE TIME YOU ASKED ME IF SKELETONS CAN ACTUALLY PEE OR NOT, SO GO AHEAD!”  
  
This picnic had been planned weeks in advance.  In attendance were most of the monsters that Frisk had met in the underground, along with a few of the friends they’d made on the surface since then.  That included you, though Frisk hadn’t been the one to directly invite you.  Sans had checked with them, and he’d been the one to suggest you attend.  
  
The thing was, although Undyne had heard a lot about you and Sans becoming some sort of extremely insufferable dynamic duo, she’d hardly ever seen the two of you in action before.  Sure, you and Sans had visited her and Alphys for a few anime nights that none of you called double dates, but whatever best-friend tendencies the two of you had with each other must have been somewhat muted at that point, or maybe just not fully developed yet.  
  
Because Undyne had never seen the two of you act this way with each other.  In fact, she’d never seen Sans act like this with anyone.  He was pretty touch-averse, and got kind of awkward when his friends or family gave him hugs.  And he always kept his hands to himself.  Specifically, he kept them in his pockets.  Yet here he was at the picnic with you, sitting so close his leg was over yours and he would be sitting in your lap if he scooted over just a few inches, taking turns chugging soda and competing over who could burp more letters of the alphabet before they ran out of steam.  Sans kept winning.  
  
So Undyne didn’t know what to think.  She figured Papyrus would be able to tell her.  
  
“Are those two a _thing_?”  
  
She pointed the two of you out, just in time to catch you hugging the small skeleton, and more importantly, him hugging you back like it was the most comfortable thing in the world for him.  Papyrus saw it too.  
  
“WHY YES!  THEY HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A _THING_!  THEY’VE GOTTEN ALONG REALLY WELL EVER SINCE THEY MET.  I AM SO HAPPY FOR SANS!  NOW HE HAS A SUPER COOL AND TOUGH BEST FRIEND JUST LIKE I DO!  I THINK EVERYBODY SHOULD HAVE A SUPER COOL AND TOUGH BEST FRIEND!”  
  
“Awwwh!  Well I think everybody should have a super cool and tough skeleton for a best friend!  C’mere, you!”  
  
“NOOO!  DON’T NOOGIE THE SKELETON!”  
  
“Ngahhh!”  
  
But that was the thing about Undyne and Papyrus.  They were used to physical affection.  _Aggressive_ physical affection.  There was no ambiguity to what was going on between them.  They were super close friends!  Simple as that.  
  
But you and Sans…?  
  
“Fuhuhu.  Anyways, Papyrus…”  She let him go once they’d finished roughhousing.  “I was trying to ask if they’re a ROMANTIC thing.  Y’know, kissing and f—er, kissing and all that.”  
  
“OH, THAT’S EASY!  …  UM.  I DON’T KNOW!”  
  
“You don’t know?!”  
  
“I GUESS I NEVER REALLY ASKED.  OR WONDERED ABOUT IT.  I THINK THEY’RE JUST VERY VERY CLOSE FRIENDS?  DON’T JUDGE ME, YOU DON’T KNOW, EITHER!”  
  
They watched you lovingly feed him the grapes from your fruit salad.  
  
“…  They’ve _gotta_ be.  Like.  At LEAST friends with benefits.”  
  
“A TRUE FRIENDSHIP HAS MANY BENEFITS!”  
  
“…  Sure, Papyrus.  That’s very sweet.”  
  
It looked like it was time for you to go.  You started gathering up your stuff, which drew your attention away from Sans.  His attention wasn’t drawn away from you, though.  He just sat there, still in the same position as when you were sitting next to him, watching you with a gentle smile and a far-off look in his eyes.  
  
“Ohhh man!  Or is he just crushing on them hard?!” Undyne theorized.  “I mean, it’s pretty obvious HE’S acting different around them, but I don’t know how THEY usually act.  We need to ask some of their closer friends if it’s normal for their hands to be magnetically attracted to their best friend’s body all the time!”  
  
“THEY GIVE ME LOTS OF HUGS!”  
  
“Well yeah but do they pinch your cheek like she’s doing to him right now?”  
  
“SOMETIMES!  BUT MY CHEEKS ARE ALSO NOT AS SQUISHY AS HIS, SO THAT IS A FACTOR.”  
  
“Do they subtly touch your butt like that?”  
  
You and Sans had just pulled out of a hug, and yes, your hands were resting on those magical buns of his that, like most of his body form, would mysteriously disappear upon removal of his clothes.  
  
“…  I DON’T THINK SO?  EXCEPT MAYBE ON ACCIDENT.  IS THAT ON ACCIDENT?”  
  
“Extended butt-touching is never on accident.”  Undyne shook her head.  “You know what?  I’ll check.”  
  
But instead of just going up and asking you, she cupped her hands around her mouth and called out, “GOD, YOU TWO, JUST KISS ALREADY!”  
  
Both of you blushed and quickly pulled away from each other.  Sans shoved his hands in his pockets, and you rubbed your neck.  
  
“…  Holy shit.  They haven’t even kissed yet.”


	7. Let's Explore the Outdoors!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Local weirdo brings their lazy skeleton boyfriend on a five-mile nature hike, more at eleven.

Sans was the opposite of an outdoorsy type.  You knew that he was a bit of a hermit and preferred the comfort of his own home, and more specifically and restrictively, his own room.

 

But you never would’ve guessed that, after a year of living with you, he hadn’t explored any more of your neighborhood than the shopping complex that was a few blocks away.

 

You quickly decided that you were going to drag his bony ass on an adventure whether he liked it or not, and in contemplating where to bring him, your mind immediately went to the nearby nature trail.  You’d gone hiking and biking there a few times and knew it to be scenic, quiet, and fairly low-intensity.  Perfect for a guy who didn’t like walking much in the first place.

 

Surprisingly, he didn’t put up much of a fight.  He whined when you pulled him out of bed a bit too early for his taste, but once he was awake and clear-headed, it seemed he was open to giving it a chance.  He put on an, in your opinion, impossibly cute outfit consisting of a sloth tank top, tan cargo shorts, and one of your flannel jackets.

 

The sloth motif proved to be appropriate.  Once you were out the door, he clung to you like one with his hand in the crook of your arm.  It occurred to you less than a quarter mile down the nature trail that this was the first time you’d ever gone on a hike with a romantic partner.

 

It struck you as kind of funny that Sans, of all people, was the first one to do this with you.

 

You got a few funny or hostile looks from passersby, like you always did when you broadcasted your relationship with each other in public.  But you also got some smiles and approving nods.  It was quickly becoming more and more evident in society that human-monster relationships were one of the new major social issues, and you were a part of that.  As much as you tried to forget it sometimes—you didn’t want to be a part of some revolution, you just wanted to be… you and Sans.  In love.  That was all there was to it.

 

“alright.  i’ll hand it to ya.  this place is really pretty.  but next time,” Sans breathed from your side at around the mile mark, “you’re riding me through here on the back of your bike.”  He sounded short of breath.  Geez, your boyfriend was out of shape.

 

“What, so you can see it all without putting in the effort?”

 

“exactly.  and so that i can hatch some eggs in pokemon go.”  
  
“Pshhh.  You still play that game?”

 

“you _don’t_?”  Sans nudged you with his hip.  “it’s okay.  you can admit you just quit out of frustration when i kept catching snorlaxes and you couldn’t find a single one.”

 

“…  I wanted to catch one and name it after yooou…”

 

You kept up your usual, affectionate banter for a bit longer.  It seemed to help distract him from his exhaustion.  But sweat started to gather on his forehead, his breathing got heavier as it fell behind cooling his overworking magic, and there was an unmistakable, tired slouch to his posture.  So you had mercy on him and told him to take a break, drink some water and have a snack.  
  
“thanks, babe.”  Your boyfriend grinned up at you from where he was seated on a tree stump.  “last time i was panting and sweating this hard i—”  
  
“Don’t say it.”  
  
“perv.  i was gonna say ‘i was working up the courage to ask you out.’”  
  
“No you weren’t.”  You smirked and shook your head at his antics.  
  
“whew.  well in any case, i’m starting to get pretty beat.  how far have we gone?”  
  
You checked the map.  “Oh.  About a mile and a quarter.”  
  
“oh nice.  not bad at all.  and how long is the trail?”  
  
You slowly hid your face with the map and maintained your silence.  
  
“…  baaabe.  how long is the trail you’re bringing me on.  fess up.”  
  
“…  Ffffive.”  
  
Sans groaned, got to his feet, and started to turn back the way you came, but you grabbed his wrist.  
  
“Come onnn, Sans.  I told you we had to get you out of the house.  And the trail only gets prettier from here!  There’s a part with some grasslands, oh, and some REALLY pretty water, and…  ahhh, and I’ll make it worth your while!”  
  
He turned back to you and crossed his arms, an expectant smile on his face.  You had his attention.

 

“I’ll drive out to Grillby’s and get you a burger AND cheese fries.”  You reached out, took his arms in your hands, and slowly started guiding him forward on the trail.  He put up no resistance, but you continued anyways.  “And I’ll kiss you.  And I’ll let you sleep in REALLY late tomorrow morning.  And…  and we’ll make it an anime day.  You can show me that one you’ve been gushing about.  The one with the animals working in an office.  Aggekatsuo…?”  
  
Sans chuckled at your bungled pronunciation.  “Aggretsuko.”  
  
“Yeah, that!”  You beamed down at him.  “Come onnn, Sansy.  Wouldn’t you walk three-and-three-quarters more miles for the love of your life?”

 

Upon hearing that, he joined you at your side again, so that you didn’t have to keep pulling him along.  Of all the things you’d said, that was the one thing that finally convinced him.  
  
“i’d do it on hot coals for you, darlin’.”


	8. I Spy a Firefly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some more pre-relationship fluff~

You never would’ve expected Sans to have his eyes on anything but the stars (or you) during any of your stargazing trips.  But on this one in particular, something else was drawing his attention.  Something that only appeared around this time in the year.

 

Fireflies.  
  
When you thought about it, you realized that, around this time last year, he and all the other monsters were still trapped underground.  This was his first full summer spent here, free and happy.  So this must be his…

 

“First time seeing fireflies?” you mused, watching his pupils flit from point of light to point of light.  
  
“first time seein’ fireflies,” Sans confirmed, his tone as quietly awestruck as his expression.

 

“Did you want to try and catch some?  I have some water bottles back in the car we could use.”  
  
“dude.  cruel.”  
  
“No, it’s okay, really!  People do it all the time.  You keep them through the night and let them go in the morning…”

  
Sans just chuckled and shook his head.  “nah, it’s alright.  i just wanna look at them.  they remind me…”  He trailed off, leaving you to wonder.  
  
“What do they remind you of?”  
  
“…  waterfall.  this place in the underground.  it’s just.  when we were all trapped down there, we couldn’t see the stars.  so we had to make do with what we had.  so our stars were just glittery rocks in the ceiling in this place called waterfall.”

 

“Awh…”  That struck you as bittersweet.  At least they had something pretty to remind them of the outside world, but…  it was only that.  A reminder.  An imitation.  Either a sign of hope or an endless taunt as to what they couldn’t have.  Freedom.

 

“yeah.  and when i was a little kid.  i decided i wanted to go up there and catch some stars.  if.  you can please take a moment to reflect on the mental image of a tiny, chubby babybones skeleton scaling a wall like spiderman.”  
  
You giggled at his description and waited for him to go on.  He didn’t sound like he was done.  
  
“and i actually managed to do it.  as far as digging a couple of shiny rocks out of the ceiling goes, i mean.  i put ‘em in a jar and kept ‘em in my room.  but the thing is.  _apparently_ half of what makes the rocks so shiny is the moving water reflecting off of ‘em.  so when i brought ‘em back to snowdin and put ‘em in my dark, dank little room…”  
  
“Awwwh.  They didn’t look like stars anymore?”  
  
“nope.  and i learned that day that life ain’t fair.”  
  
You…  honestly couldn’t tell whether he was being hyperbolic there or not.  It was a safe bet that he was being as half-serious as ever.  
  
“… y’know,” he went on after a long moment of your thoughtful silence, “maybe i’ll take you up on that firefly-catching offer of yours.  not with water bottles, though.  can we look up how to catch fireflies without hurting any and come back tomorrow to do it right?”

 

“Of course we can!”  You were at that stage in your and Sans’ friendship where you felt a strange urge to take him up on any offer to hang out and do something cute.  Catching fireflies sounded kinda dreamy.  “Heh.  Just want to make sure you don’t kill any of the stars?”

 

“heh.  yeah.  i know there’s billions of stars out there, but spending my whole life in the underground just makes me feel like…”  His gaze shifted from the ethereal insects in the air to your face. 

 

“…  starlight is precious, and i wanna protect it wherever i see it.”


	9. The Trees Are Screaming! (Cicadas)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You and Sans are friends and he likes to pester you with his endless questions about the surface and all the weird things he encounters there.
> 
> Also he has a crush on you and doesn't realize what it is yet, because this is an exclusively Sans/reader series, damn it.

Sans didn’t know what to make of the strange noise outside his window.  He’d been watching videos on YouTube with his headphones on and hadn’t even noticed it until Papyrus pounded on the door to his room loud enough for him to hear even through the blasting audio of Jacksepticeye’s commentary.  
  
“SANS!  WHAT IS GOING ON?  THE TREES ARE SCREAMING!  ARE THEY THIRSTY FROM THE LACK OF RAINFALL?”  
  
“…  trees don’t scream, dude.  we lived in snowdin for years and never heard a peep from the forest.”  
  
“WELL OF COURSE!  THEY ALWAYS HAD A STEADY SUPPLY OF WATER FROM ALL THE SNOW!”  
  
“…  right, yeah, that makes sense.”  Well, neither of them knew what was going on here.  There was only one thing to do when something new on the surface confounded them.

 

… Well, Googling it would have been a valid course of action, too.  But what Sans preferred to do was call you and pester you with his questions.  He left you on speaker phone this time so that Papyrus could join in on the conversation.  
  
“Hey Sans, what’s up?”  
  
“uh.  the trees are screaming, that’s what’s up.”  
  
“Oh.  Yeah.  Cicadas.  It’s that time of year.”  
  
“…  so are cicadas some kind of screaming tree, or…?”  
  
He heard your laughter on the other end.  “Oh, no no no.  The trees aren’t screaming.  There are insects _in_ the trees that are screaming.  And those insects are called cicadas.”  
  
Sans let out a sigh of relief.  It wasn’t that he’d genuinely thought he and Papyrus were in any danger.  He was just a bit on edge about life on the surface was all.  Everyone was.  So the unfamiliar noise had made him tense until you explained it to him.  
  
“oh, ok.”  
  
“BUT WHY DO THEY SCREAM?” Papyrus inquired.  “I AM STILL CONCERNED ABOUT THEIR WELL-BEING!”  
  
“I dunno.  Probably song kind of mating behavior.  Whenever animals do anything weird, it’s usually mating behavior.”  
  
“OH!  VERY LOUD INSECT FLIRTING!”  
  
“Yeah, something like that.”  
  
While you and Papyrus had your brief back-and-forth, Sans had been typing away at his computer.

 

‘why do chikadas scream’  
‘Showing results for why do **_cicadas_** scream’  
  
‘The **cicada’s** claim to fame is its singing.  The high-pitched song is actually a mating call belted out by males…’

 

“nailed it,” Sans confirmed.  “dude.  how are you so smart?”  
  
“Smart?  Oh don’t be silly, Sans.  That was a lucky informed guess.  Like I said.  When animals act weird, it’s usually because they wanna get taken to pound town.”

 

“SANS ACTS WEIRD ALL THE TIME!  ESPECIALLY AROUND YOU.”  
  
There was an awkward silence all around, courtesy of Papyrus.  
  
“NOT THAT I’M!  IMPLYING ANYTHING!”  
  
“No, no, of course—”  
  
“yeah, nah. ‘sfine.”  
  
“It’s cool.  We’re cool.”

 

Damn it.  Somebody needed to just sweep that under the rug with a good, abrupt change of topic.  You gave it a shot.  
  
“So, um.  You know if you go on Wikipedia for anything, and just start clicking on links, you can go down the BIGGEST rabbit hole.  Wanna do that on the wiki page for cicadas?  See what other wild stuff we can find.”  
  
“SOUNDS LIKE FUN!”

 

“yeah, sure.  i love wiki surfing.”

 

The three of you spent well over an hour like that.  Sans on his computer, Papyrus sitting on the edge of his mattress, you a few blocks away in the comfort of your own home.  It was almost like you were all there together.  Sans found himself kind of wishing that you were.  
  
He couldn’t wait to see you for your usual burger joint outing that Friday.


	10. Movies and Popcorn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sans is a gremlin but you love him anyways.

It was times like these you were reminded what an absolute insufferable gremlin you’d fallen in love with.

 

You’d paid good money for the movie tickets you and Sans now held in your pockets, but he didn’t seem to have much interest in what was going on on-screen.  Maybe you’d read his interest in movies wrong, or maybe he was always like this, but he kept finishing his bag of popcorn and running out to get more, telling you to fill him in on anything important he missed.

 

If this date to the movies was a story entitled ‘Movies and Popcorn,’ then your part of the story would be mostly ‘movies’ and his part of the story would have heavy, heavy emphasis on ‘popcorn.’

 

“Sans,” you whispered to him, “you wanna slow down with the popcorn there, buddy?”  
  
“but it’s sooo good,” he whispered back to you.  He offered you a large handful.  “have some.  i got extra butter this time, so that makes it extra good.”  
  
“…  I have my own…”  
  
“but not with extra butter.”  
  
You got shushed by someone nearby, and you couldn’t blame them.  You nodded affirmatively and put your finger over your lips at Sans, but he wouldn’t stop holding out that handful of popcorn to you, so eventually you had to relent and accept it.  Rolling your eyes, you leaned down to eat out of his hand like a horse.  If he was going to be totally obnoxious, so were you.

 

He snorted softly in a feeble attempt to contain his laughter.  Now it was his turn to do something goofy.  So as you ate out of his hand, he pushed his hand towards your face until a bunch of popcorn missed your mouth and fell into your lap.  You squeaked a little in surprise, but luckily, nobody shushed you this time.  In retaliation, you cracked open your box of Junior Mints and started shoving them at his mouth.  He accepted a few of them, but most of them just got squished against his teeth and either ended up stuck there, or fell on to either his lap or the floor.

 

Damn it.  What was with Sans and his amazing ability to goad you into acting like an obnoxious teenager in public?

 

The two of you could only get away with goofing off so much, so once you were done making a mess of your theater snacks, you picked up a napkin and started cleaning up.  First this face, then your own.  That goofy, genuine smile never left his face.  That perfect smile, the one that reached his eyes, that he only got when he was genuinely happy…  
  
“can we just do this forever?” you could’ve sworn you heard him say in his hushed voice.  
  
“Tch.  No,” you told him.  “We’ll get kicked out if we cause any more of a ruckus than we already have.”  
  
“no, i mean.  can we just…  be total dorks together.  not get tired of each other.  er…”  he rubbed his neck, “i could never get tired of you.  i guess i’m just scared of the day i smoosh popcorn into your face and you tell me that i’m being annoying instead of smooshing something in my face in return.”  
  
“SHHH!” Someone shushed you again, louder this time.  Usually you would’ve given them an apologetic nod and wave, but it kind of pissed you off that they’d interrupted one of Sans’ rare moments of vulnerability, so you had to refrain from flipping them off.  
  


“…  Don’t worry about it, Sans,” you told him with a reassuring, and somewhat shamelessly coddling, pat on the head.  “We can be dorks together forever.  I promise.”


	11. Sand Castle Competition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Never challenge Undyne and Papyrus to anything, ever. Especially when you have an attractive skeleton boyfriend who keeps distracting you.

When Papyrus suggested that you, him, Undyne, and Sans all go on a beach trip, your first thought was immediate and extremely convincing: you’d never seen your skeleton boyfriend in anything more skimpy than a T-shirt and shorts before, and you _wanted_ to.

 

Of course, it then occurred to you simply that a beach trip sounded fun in general, so you enthusiastically agreed to go.

 

The novelty of seeing Sans’ ribcage had worn off awhile ago—not that you didn’t keep stealing glances at him, but now it was just because you found him downright attractive, not because he had a weird little skeleton body.  You were sure your half-naked human body was having the same effect on him, especially since you kept catching each other’s eye while checking each other out and giving each other the shyest and most awkward of smiles.

 

None of this was a problem until you were pitted against Papyrus and Undyne in a sand castle competition, in a match you called Lovers vs. Bruvvers (despite Papyrus’ protests of ‘BUT SANS IS MY BROTHER, NOT UNDYNE!’).  
  
It was an unfair matching-up in the first place.  You and Sans tended to be rather low-effort, whereas Papyrus and Undyne were good at putting one-hundred percent into everything they did.  You and Sans tended to be tired all the time, whereas Papyrus and Undyne were great big balls of energy.  
  
But probably the one thing that hindered the two of you the most was the fact that you had only recently become each other’s significant other and you could not, for the life of you, stop checking each other out.  
  
“FIVE MINUTES LEFT, NERDS!” Undyne called back to you over her shoulder.  “I hope you’re building the friggin’ Starship Enterprise or something over there, because ours is looking AWESOME!” Your two teams were rapidly trying to put together the most kick-ass sand castle possible under your assigned 20-minute time limit, and you were doing it facing away from each other so that there could be a grand reveal of each of your projects at the end.  
  
It would seem you and Sans had managed to burn an entire fifteen minutes creating nothing but an amorphous wall-type structure.  
  
“…  shit, we gotta catch up.  quick.  just start building…  uh… a really tall table.”  He quickly started scooping up entire armfuls of dirt and piling them on top of your meager creation-in-progress.  He wasn’t the best man for the job, though.  The sand kept slipping back through the spaces between his ribs and plopping down on his legs and the ground.  
  
“…  A really tall table?  It’s supposed to be a castle, sugar skull.”  
  
“just trust me, babe.  it’ll be great.”  
  
Well, you were certainly never one to doubt him.  Sans was probably the smartest person you knew.  So you went along with it, scooping up armfuls of sand just like he was doing and dumping them on top of the rest.  While you took over that work, Sans busied himself with shaping it into a more rectangular shape rather than a slightly rounded mass.  It actually looked kind of neat—not like a sand castle at all, but like a sand… office building.  Or a sand prison building.  
  
Undyne’s obnoxious phone alert tone signaled an end to your competitive building period, and just as the sound reached your ears, Sans made a desperate grab for one of the tiny decorative sand castle flags you’d brought to your side of the competition and teleported.  For a moment, you didn’t know where.  
  
“Time’s up, NERDS!  Let’s see what you’ve got—I doubt it can beat OURS!”  
  
So did you.  Theirs was exactly what you would expect from Undyne and Papyrus.  A huge, crazy castle, with a moat and everything, that you could hardly believe had been put together in just 20 minutes.  It was downright impressive.  
  
Yours, on the other hand…  
  
That was where Sans had teleported.  Up on top of the tall, table-like sand structure you’d made, he was stretched out on his side like a little male skeleton model.  Papyrus immediately frowned at him.  
  
“SAAANS.  DON’T YOU DARE.”  
  
“it’s a…  saaans castle.”  He waved the tiny little decorative flag back and forth emphatically.  
  
“…  WELL, THAT SETTLES IT.  WE WIN, UNDYNE!  HURRAY!”  
  
“NICE!  Awesome job, Papyrus!”  Undyne gave him a double high five, then a bone-crushing hug.  “Proving once again that it should always be BROS BEFORE HOES!”  
  
“AND SISTERS BEFORE MISTERS!”  
  
You chuckled and shook your head at them with your arms crossed, then turned to Sans and offered him your hand to help him down.  “If it was up to me, I would’ve picked your idea as the winner.”  
  
“no bias or anything,” he quipped as he accepted your hand.  
  
“None at all, handsome~”  


Needless to say, Team Lovers didn’t mind losing the sand castle competition that day.


	12. Nice Cream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You cheer up your totally platonic best friend with nice cream and there are no romantic undertones at all, no siree!

You had learned pretty early on in your friendship with Sans that he had depression.

 

Even now, months later and deep into the realm of _best_ friendship, he still hadn’t come out and called it that, but he’d done everything else to admit to it.  He described the way it felt to you, and never argued or contradicted you when you mentioned it by name.  Depression.  
  
And you knew how it was with depression.  It could wax and wane, but wasn’t likely to ever truly go away for good.  It would always be with him, and when it reared its ugly head, he was going to need your support.  Probably even sometimes without him actually asking for it.  You had to learn to read when he was sad versus when he was just tired.  
  
And, with a lot of practice, you did.  You found that, to your surprise, _most_ of the time Sans said that he was just tired, he was actually in a state of depression.  You wondered if he even really meant to hide his pain from you, or if even he didn’t fully realize what was a depressive episode and what was truly just fatigue, boredom, and/or normal sadness.

 

Today was definitely a depressive episode.  One of his worse ones.  
  
You were debating letting him be, but that wasn’t your style.  Unless he directly told you to go away—which he’d never done so far in all the time you’d known each other—you liked to try and confront his problems head-on.  
  
You usually talked him through his feelings, like a stand-in therapist, since he refused to see an actual one (as much as you begged and pleaded for him to do so).  But even that didn’t seem to appeal to him today.  
  
“i just don’t see the point in talkin’ about it anymore,” he vented to you, face-down on his bed, chin nestled in his arms.  You were rubbing his back, which helped him feel just a little better.  “i’m just starting to repeat the same old stuff, over and over again.  it doesn’t make any of it stop.  it doesn’t make the anxiety or the anger or the desolation go away.  it’s got nothing to do with you, but…” he sighed softly.  “…  i don’t think i wanna talk about it anymore.  at least not until i figure out something more to say than what’s already been said.  i don’t think either of us want to keep going over the same shit on a bunch of different days.  y’know, the resets, the nightmares, the hopelessness, the feeling that my stupid life isn’t going anywhere whether there’s a reset or not, like i’m not good enough for anything, can’t accomplish anything anymore…  that about cover it?”  
  
You thought over his points and tried to think of any more common topics in your conversations about this, but those themes must have been burned into his head from how long he’d been drowning in them.  It broke your heart that he could rattle them off like that.  “…  Yeah, I guess so.”  
  
“then let’s talk about something else.”  
  
“Alright.  But…”  Your hand stalled between his shoulder blades as you slipped deeper into your thoughts.  “I just want you to know…  if talking about that stuff helps you.  Or if you ever feel like it might help you.  Even if you’re just repeating yourself over and over again.  I’ll listen.  I’ll do _anything_ to help you,” you promised him.  
  
“i know.”  Instead of sounding comforted, Sans just sounded so sad when he acknowledged your loyalty to him.  “that’s part of the problem.  you’re wasting your time on me, and it hurts seeing you do that, knowing you could be doing such bigger and better things—”  
  
“You’re my _best friend_ , Sans.  My best friend in the whole entire world,” you cut him off to argue.  “Maybe I will do great things in my life.  I certainly hope I do.  But never without you, okay?”  
  
He turned his head to look at you.  He didn’t speak, but he looked like he really needed to hear something.  You chose your concluding words carefully…  
  
“I know you feel like nothing, and I don’t blame you.  I just wish you could see how special you are to me.”  
  
He stared at you for a moment, then grabbed the pillow he’d been resting on and sat up while hugging it.  
  
“you’re special to me, too.  let’s talk about something else.”  
  
“Alright.”  Your lips turned up in a smile.  “Actually, I was kind of hoping you would say that soon.  Not that I didn’t want to talk about it.  Just because I didn’t want all these to melt…”  You swung your backpack up on to the mattress, unzipped the second-largest pouch, and started pulling out, one by one, all the nice creams you’d bought.  With each one you pulled out, his eye sockets got a little wider.  
  
“dude.  dude!  how many of those did you _buy_?”  
  
You looked at the ceiling, wrinkled your nose a little, and counted off on your fingers.  One, two, three, four…  “Sixteen?”  
  
“why on earth did you buy sixteen nice creams?”  
  
“Because I knew you were sad.  And Papyrus told me you hadn’t eaten all day but SPECIFICALLY prohibited me from taking you out to Grillby’s, so I had to find something else I knew you liked.”  
  
“…  i think he wanted you to bring me something healthy.”  
  
“I know.”  You carefully peeled open the first one and handed it to him.  You held on to the wrapper, though.  “It says ‘You’re super spiffy!’  I agree.  Spiffy is a good word for you.”

 

Sans seemed to be enjoying the nice cream.  As his best friend, one of the many things you knew about him was that he liked to comfort-eat.  That, and he probably enjoyed being called super spiffy.  You also knew he didn’t get a lot of compliments.  
  
“Hmmm.”  You picked up another nice cream, but kept it for yourself this time, along with its wrapper.  “’You look nice today!’”  
  
“pffft.”  Sans rolled his eyes.  
  
“It’s true!  You look nice every day!”  
  
“do not.”  
  
“Do too!”  
  
“alright.  gimme that.”  Sans swiped another nice cream off the pile, even though he was only halfway through his first one.  Realizing this, he deepthroated it and swallowed the rest in one noisy gulp, making you almost choke on yours from laughing at him.  “ ‘are those claws natural?’  …  what does that even mean?”  
  
You smiled playfully and raised your hand, curling your fingers like they were claws.  “Meee-ow.”  
  
“vicious.  looks natural to me.”  
  
If there was anything you and Sans were good at, it was going back and forth like this and goofing off with each other.  Even with the somber mood hanging in the air, even with the underlying tone of we’re-just-doing-this-to-distract-ourselves, it was still…  nice.  For both of you.  
  
And for the first time that day, Sans felt genuinely happy.  
  
After you’d eaten three and Sans had eaten five, you’d kind of given up on actually eating the nice creams.  Now you were just ripping off the wrappers and reading them to each other.  
  
“’You’re just great!’”  
  
“’is this as sweet as you?’  awh.”  
  
“’Have a wonderful day!’”  
  
“eh, it’s gettin’ better.  this one says…  oh, i can’t read this one.  it’s just a drawing of a hug.”  
  
You looked down at yours.  The words you read aloud made your stupid heart skip a beat.  
  
“Love yourself.  I love you.”  
  
Sans looked up at you.  Grin just a little wider.  Eyes just a little brighter.  Cheeks just a little more blue.  “…  mine says the same thing.”  
  
“No shit?”  
  
“no shit.”  He showed it to you, and for good measure, he, too, read out the fateful words.  “love yourself.  i love you.”  
  
Sans clearly needed the reminder the most, but the truth was, you really needed to hear that, too.

 

You would both always remember this as the very first time you told each other that you loved each other.


	13. Outdoor Monster Concert and Jamboree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wrote like 80% of this with Sans and reader already together and then went back and switched it to pre-relationship pining can u tell  
> Also I see an opportunity for a song fic like... thing and I fuckin take it

You had to say, you appreciated the creativity they put into the big monster concert and jamboree.  It was a huge deal, both to monsters and to the humans who loved them.  There was an enormous selection of food and drinks, both alcoholic and virgin, both magical and mundane.  There was a big, theatrical performance on stage for each song (most of them involving Mettaton, because who the hell would want to go up there and entertain both human and monsterkind more than him?).  And the idea behind the song choices was simple: one song from each decade they were trapped underground, counting backwards.

 

Currently, you were on the 80s.  
  
_She’s a maniac, maniac on the floor_

_And she’s dancing like she’s never danced before!_

You weren’t really looking onstage anymore.  You were too wrapped up in what you were doing: hopping and swinging your hips along to the beat, and letting Papyrus pull you along.  It really didn’t bother you at all to be dancing with your best friend Sans’ little brother like this—the two of you were close friends too, he was so much fun to be around, and he had so much energy!  The whole reason he ended up dancing with you was because Sans was too busy lying on his stomach like a cozy little slug, on a blanket laid out over the grass, watching the performance on stage, and occasionally, glancing over to look at you.  He wasn’t much of a dancer.  
  
But boy, Papyrus sure was!  
  
“WOWIE!  I CAN’T BELIEVE SANS IS BEST FRIENDS WITH SOMEBODY WHO IS SO GOOD AT DANCING!  MAYBE HE LIKES THAT YOU COMPENSATE FOR HIS OWN LACK OF GRACE!”  
  
You laughed, twirling in a circle that made your loose clothes fluff out around you momentarily, like you were some kind of royalty.  “Yeah?!  Well I can’t believe that Sans is RELATED to somebody who’s so good at dancing!”  
  
_It can cut you like a knife_  
If the fight becomes the fire  
On the wire between will and what will be…

 

The chorus started up again, and you put everything into your dancing.  You forgot your insecurities and inhibitions, forgot your usual worries that somebody might look at you and laugh at the way you danced.  You’d never felt so comfortable in your own skin as you did around your monster friends.

 

“NYEH-HEH-HEH!  YOU GO, HUMAN!  STRUT YOUR STUFF, AS THEY SAY!  SHAKE THAT BOOTY!”  
  
You were having a hard enough time holding in your own laughter when you heard him say that _before_ you glanced over at Sans and saw him snort the root beer he was trying to drink up into and out of his nasal cavity.  That made you double over for a second, laughter squeezing a couple of happy tears from your eyes.  Then you threw your arms up in the air and sang the last couple of verses of the song at the top of your lungs while dancing downright recklessly.

 

 _She's a maniac, maniac I sure know_  
And she's dancing like she's never danced before  
  


_Maniac, maniac I sure know…_

As the song fell into its final diminuendo, so did your dancing, until the song was over and you were left standing there, breathless.  Papyrus rushed you and gave you a hug that almost made your exhausted legs give out from under you.  
  
“Whoa!  Is my dancing THAT great?”  
  
“IT’S JUST SO NICE TO SEE YOU HAVING SO MUCH FUN!”  
  
It struck you at that moment—you didn’t know it had been so noticeable, but you hadn’t exactly been in a good place when you met your now-friends.  You had been shy, and quiet, and lonely, and sad.  And that was all putting it simply—it had been more severe than just those things.  Sure, things weren’t perfect now, they never would be perfect, but you were happy.  That was worth a lot.  And it showed, clearly.

 

That was easily the most energetic dance you’d done so far at the concert, and you’d been on your feet since it began, so you and Papyrus both agreed that you’d earned your spot next to Sans on the blanket.  
  
“wow,” he remarked simply, his eyes following you all the way from your spot in the crowd to your new spot next to him.  “making me jealous of my own little bro.”  
  
“Pffft.  Why?  I’d dance with you if you wanted to.”

  
“i know.  i just wish i could keep up with those quick hips of yours.”  He grinned mischievously and reached over to tickle your sides, making you squirm for a moment before you managed to shove his hands away.  “heheh.  too bad i’ve got these old, slow bones.”  
  
“Sans!  You’re only, like…  five years older than Papyrus.”  
  
“i know.  i’m sooo old.  i’m knock-knock-knockin’ on heaven’s door.  man.  they shoulda’ played _that_ for the 90s song.”  
  
Now that you were close together, he put his arm around you.  Between cuddling with your best friend and the cool evening breeze, relaxation washed over you quickly.  Your heart slowed from an excited and euphoric race to a slow, even beat.

 

It was a good thing you took some time to relax, because a few songs later, a miracle happened.  
  
Sans got to his feet and silently, somewhat awkwardly offered you his hand.  You looked up at him, puzzled.  
  
“…  You want to dance to this one?” you asked him.  
  
“if that’s ok.  it’s in a movie i like.  and it’s slow dancing.  the only kinda dancing i can handle…” he joked, earning a cute little giggle of acknowledgement from you, “if you don’t mind putting up with my two left feet—”  
  
“Of course I don’t mind.”  
  
_Earth angel, Earth angel, will you be mine?_  
My darling dear, love you all the time  
I'm just a fool, a fool in love with you

 

You and Sans stood across from each other, your arms over his shoulders, his hands on your hips.  You swayed aimlessly from side to side like a couple of teenagers at prom, but not even high school prom.  Middle school prom.  Eighth grade, we-just-did-the-dancing-unit-in-PE-and-we-swear-we-know-what-we’re-doing prom.  
  
“…  i’m so bad at this,” Sans whispered under his breath.  
  
“You’re fine, little guy.  As long as you don’t step on my toes?  I’d say you’re doing pretty well~”  
  
“just so you know.  when i keep glancing down?”  You’d noticed he’d been doing that.  “that’s not me getting fresh with you.  that’s me making sure i don’t step on your toes with these clodhoppers.”  
  
“Heheh!  Okay, Sansy…”  
  
“it’s true.”  
  
_Earth angel, Earth angel, please be mine  
My darling dear, love you all the time  
I'm just a fool, a fool in love with you_  
  
You smiled, feeling your cheeks become warm as they often did around him, and pulled him in until you had your arms fully wrapped around each other and you were dancing cheek-to-cheek.  You could smell something besides ketchup and pine on him for once.  Did…  he put on bone cologne for this?  He must’ve been planning to dance with you ahead of time, waiting for a good song to start.  
  
God, it was always the little things about Sans that made him so sweet.  
  
_I fell for you, and I knew_

_The vision of your love's loveliness_

 

He mumbled what you were pretty sure was your name against your chest, and you shifted your head a little to let him know he had your attention.  
  
“Yeah, Sans?”  
  
He pulled away, just a little, and you faltered and stopped dancing for a moment before he chuckled and told you to “keep goin’.” He just wanted to look at you.  
  
His pupils were in the shapes of hearts.  


_I hope and I pray, that some day_

_I'll be the vision, the vision of your happiness_

_Oh, oh, oh…_

 

He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his teeth to your lips, tense, as if just waiting for you to pull away and reject him.  
  
Instead, you leaned in, curled your fingers into the fabric of his hoodie, and reciprocated.  
  
  
_Earth angel, Earth angel! Please be mine  
My darling dear, love you for all time_

He pulled away first, nervous despite your clear acceptance.  “probably shoulda warned—”  
  
“Shut up and kiss me again, bone boy.”  You leaned in first this time, and kissed him even deeper than the first time.  It was his turn to show his acceptance, and he did, his body relaxing blissfully in your arms.  
  
_I'm just a fool  
A fool in love with you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> psyche binch it's also a first kiss fic


	14. Monster Summer Camp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Your husband enables your son's clinginess.

Two out of your three kids loved summer camp.  Your oldest daughter, Destiny, and your youngest daughter, Lucida, had a love for learning new things, just like both their parents, and absorbed every camp activity like a sponge.  
  
Your middle son, Sitka, had a bit of a problem when it came to attending summer camp.  
  
He was a major daddy’s boy, and he always missed the _hell_ out of Sans whenever he went anywhere away from home.  So, of course, your husband’s brilliant idea to deal with this was to totally cave in and have the two of you go to summer camp with them.  You would’ve been happy about it, except for the fact that half the reason you sent your kids to summer camp was to have some time alone with your husband, just like old times.

 

“why the long face, babe?  i think your macaroni art looks awesome.”  
  
You must’ve been frowning while gluing down the last few pieces of pasta on to your macaroni skeleton.  You glanced to the left, where your kids were all in a row crafting away, then glanced right to your husband and leaned in his direction.  
  
“…  We’re the only parents sticking around.”  
  
“i know.  isn’t it awesome?  we love our kids more than any of those other losers.  can you hand me one of the bowtie pieces?”  
  
You rolled your eyes, but passed him the piece he needed.  “I don’t think the camp staff know what to do with us.”  
  
“sure they do.  we fit right in with the kids.  you always call me a manbaby.”  True to what he’d just said, he grinned proudly and showed you his macaroni picture.  It seemed to be a skeleton just like yours, but with a bowtie.  “it’s me on date night.”  
  
“Bullshiii—” Lucida gasped, preventing you from swearing in front of all the kids, “—poo.  You’ve gone to five-star restaurants in that tattered old hoodie of yours.”  
  
“okay fine.  it’s me on our wedding day, then.”  
  
“That’s better.”  
  
Sans scooted closer to you and put his arm around your waist.  He leaned against you and rested his head on your shoulder, trying to look like he was just cuddling up to you.  But he took the opportunity to whisper in your ear.  
  
“sorry, babe.  i know you wanted alone time.  but sitka needed me.  and you know what i’ve learned?  being a dad is all about putting your kids first.”  
  
You cracked a smile, putting your arm around him to hold him a little closer.  “Yeah.  You’re right.  That’s an important part of being a parent.”  
  
“i’ll make it up to ya,” your husband promised.  
  
“Prrr~” you purred at him playfully.  “And how do you plan on doing that?”  
  
“heh…  well—”  
  
“Daaad, stop, you’re being embarrassing in front of all my summer camp friends!” Sitka, ever the greatest competitor of yours for Sans’ attention, interrupted your moment just as he’d interrupted your planned big night together.  
  
Sans let out a heavy sigh.  “…  sorryyy, kiddo.  i’ll behave.”    
  
But the glimmer in his eyesockets when he looked at you was enough to tell you that he had no intentions of behaving once he found a bit of that coveted alone time with you.  After more than a decade of marriage, he didn’t have to say a word.


	15. Who Can Catch The Biggest Fish?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You and your boyfriend get competitive.

“i still don’t understand why you didn’t wanna make this a double date with undyne and alphys.”  
  
“Yes you do, Sans.  Yes you do.”

 

The two of you were enjoying the cool morning air out on the pier, filled with the mixed scents of ocean, fish, and breakfast from the restaurants around you, as well as the distant barking of sea lions.  You sat side by side in the trunk of your car, watching your side-by-side fishing poles and waiting for a bite.

 

“so,” mused your boyfriend, swinging his little slippered feet forward and back with his hand resting casually behind your back, “we still haven’t decided what the winner gets.”  
  
“A kiss.”  
  
“pffft.  if a kiss from you is a prize, then i’m a winner every single day.  several times a day.”  
  
“Well?” you quirked an eyebrow at him playfully.  “Aren’t you?”  
  
He blushed, scratching his chubby cheek bashfully.  “…  ya got me there, beautiful.”

 

Okay, the joke about not bringing Undyne along for this was, of course, because she was a fish lady, but you were also kind of glad that she wasn’t here to interrupt the moment between you two, as she often did just to laugh at the way the two of you got shy about your affection for one another.

 

You pulled him against your side and snuggled him gratefully, a motion he was more than happy to accept.  Effectively proving his earlier point right, you kissed him on top of his skull, and he responded by turning to kiss you on the lips.  In just that moment, though, it happened.

 

“ha! i got one!”  
  
Sans catapulted out of your arms like a fickle housecat and went to grab his fishing pole, leaving you hanging with your lips already puckered for the kiss you’d been anticipating.  It turned to an exaggerated pout, then a smile as you watched him struggle with the fishing rod.  He never put so much effort in as he did when he was trying to either impress you or compete with you (or both!).

 

“Don’t strain yourself, sweetie,” you teased him.

 

“very clever.  appealing to my lazy nature.  but it’s not gonna work.  this one’s a winner, i can feel it.”

 

Amused, you watched him struggle with it for a little longer.  Then you approached him and put your hand over his on the reel.

 

“no distractions.”

 

“I’m helping!”

 

You weren’t lying about that.  Steadying your other hand over his on the rod, you helped him reel this one in.  It came flopping on to the railing of the pier in a chaos of water and flashing scales.  A fat flounder fish.  Definitely bigger than any of the fish you’d caught.  But…  
  
“…  We split the weight of this one evenly between us,” you decided.  
  
“bullshit.”  Sans elbowed you.  “i caught it.”  
  
“No, I helped.”  
  
“i didn’t ask you to help.”  
  
“But you needed me to.”  You poked him just below the sternum.  “I was watching you.  The fish was gonna get away.  Or you were gonna drop your fishing rod over the railing.”  
  
“well excuse me, fortune teller.  maybe you should go hang out with the palm reader in that psychic shop we saw out by the entrance.”  Despite your playful banter, he put his hands on your waist.  “listen.  it’s ok to lose every once in awhile.  and when i, the clear winner here, decide on a prize for catching what is clearly the biggest fish today—nay, probably the biggest fish anyone’s caught here EVER—”  
  
You rolled your eyes at him, “Okay, Sans.”  
  
“i’ll take it easy on ya.  no embarrassing dares or anything.  i promise.”

 

When your fishing rod got a bite so hard it just about got pulled over into the ocean, both of you looked over at it at the same time, then back at each other.  Then you both lunged for it.  
  
“This one’s MINE, Sans!”  
  
“i’m helping!”  
  
“NO, you’re trying to make me split this one with you!”  
  
It was quite a challenge to catch this one, not just because of how big it was, but also because you had to hold the rod up where Sans couldn’t reach it, so that he couldn’t claim to have helped.  Still, he tried,  He reached up with his arms and hopped up and down, emphasizing his shortness.

 

As it turned out, you’d hooked a leopard shark.  Small for a shark, but BIG for a fish.  And you managed to do it all by yourself, while holding the fishing rod at a supremely awkward angle, without Sans interfering.  He stared at it, just as shocked as you that you’d managed to catch it.  
  
“…  phooey.”  
  
“Don’t worry, Sans!” you gushed, in an exaggerated, smug tone.  “When I decide on a prize for catching the biggest fish EVER here, I’ll take it easy on you!”

 

“okay.  okay.  but do you still like my flounder?”  He pointed at the cooler holding all of his catches of the day, looking somewhere between downtrodden and in desperate need of validation.  You knew the two of you were just playing around, but you still felt kind of bad for him.  So once you’d placed the _much_ superior leopard shark into your own cooler, you approached him and put your hand on his back, between his shoulder blades.  
  
“Sansy.  I love your flounder.  I will always love your flounder.”

 

His smile grew a little.  Consider your skeleton officially validated.

 

“Now.  As for my prize…”  You turned to him and rested your hands on his shoulders, eyes half-lidded.  He seemed to catch on.  He blinked, eyes flicking from your eyes to your lips and then back a few times.  Then he began to lean in…  
  
“Ten bucks.”  
  
“…  are you serious?”  
  
“Ten bucks, Sans.”  
  
He sighed, reached into his pocket, and handed you a couple of five-dollar bills.  “and the rich get richer.”  
  
The joke was on him, though.  You later used all ten dollars at the novelty sock shop closer to shore on the pier, all on socks for him.


	16. Wedding Vows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I WAS WAITING FOR THIS PROMPT THE WHOLE TIME.

You stared at your soon-to-be husband as if in a trance, Asgore’s voice droning on by your ear as he read off the customary lines.  You knew you were supposed to be listening to him, but you couldn’t.  And besides, you and Sans had gone over the whole ceremony over and over again.  You would catch your cue.  For now, you just smiled at Sans.  He smiled back at you, skeletal thumbs rubbing comfortingly over the backs of your hands.

 

Despite dating him for a long, long time, this was your first time seeing him dressed fancy, and you were eating it up.  Sure, the lazy, cozy style was his aesthetic, and it was a good one on him.  But in your opinion, _every_ man looked good in a sharp suit like that, and Sans was no exception.  No, he was a prime example.

 

“And so,” boomed Asgore’s voice, introducing the cue you’d been waiting for, “let us all bear witness to the closest thing to their love for each other that words can express, spoken directly from what cannot lie: the soul.”  
  
This was the one part of the ceremony that you had still been nervous about when it began today, for a myriad of reasons.  First, you were worried that you would be unable to produce your soul…  
  
Sans squeezed your hands a little.  The blue glow of his soul was prominent, easily visible through the white fabric of his dress shirt.  He was ready to present it to you whenever the moment came, but he was waiting for you to present yours first.  That was harder for a human than a monster.  But you could do it…  You _could_.  
  
“let me help,” he whispered to you, and pressed his body against yours in a hug.  It was a simple show of affection, of course, but also a way of placing his own soul closer to yours.  Coaxing it out.  Telling it that it was alright, and that his soul would be with it for every moment it was exposed.

 

In a few moments, your soul was convinced.  You let out a soft sigh of relief as the luminous heart-shaped essence slipped from your chest, he took a step back, and your soul joined his in the space between you.

 

That was step one.  Now for the _next_ part you were worried about, and the one you were worried about much more than just being able to produce your soul in front of the crowd.

 

Now you had to let Sans hold it, see and feel every emotion and memory of yours like never before, and not only that.  You had to give him access to every part of your being, and then you had to let him read out what he found there to the audience.

 

Even now, minutes away from calling him your husband, you were still terrified that he was going to find something there, something in the depths of your soul, something you’d never even _meant_ to hide from him, that he wouldn’t like.  Something that would give him doubts, make him turn his back on you like everyone else in your life—

 

As soon as Sans’ soul was in your hands, and yours was in his, you knew that wasn’t true.  You felt his love for you before you felt anything else, and you felt it in your own body, as if it was yours, but it was still somehow so distinctly _his_.  Even if you could feel that incredible duality of emotion inside you, the smile he gave you while holding your soul in his hands was enough to tell you that he was _deliriously_ happy from whatever it was making him see and feel and remember.

 

Why had you ever worried?  This was about your feelings for him, and if there was anything you could ever believe in with total certainty, it was that you loved Sans from the bottom of your heart.  Now, he could feel that.  And you could feel that he felt the same way about you.  Unwavering, undying, unconditional love, continuous like a thread of time from the moment he met you until now and forevermore.

 

“lemme go first,” Sans offered, grin as wide as it had been all day.  “show the human how it’s done.  let’s see…  first thing they thought about me was that i was weird.  so i’m pretty sure that’s the same as everyone who’s ever met me.  now how the heck did we get from that to you wanting to marry me?” he teased you, earning a laugh from the audience, and a bashful shrug from you.  
  
It really was true.  He could remember your thoughts, your feelings, just as clearly as you could.  And you remembered all the days spent with him like they were just yesterday, all the way back to your first impressions of him.  As people say, time flies when you’re having fun, and your relationship with Sans was the most fun you’d had in your entire life.

 

“i guess it all started when we started spending more time together.  it’s hard for them to tell the difference between us becoming good friends and the beginning of their crush on me.  in fact, they’re not even totally sure the distinction was ever there.  something about our friendship always felt… different to them.  something they couldn’t quite put their finger on.  they got a real happy, funny feeling inside ‘em whenever we were around each other.  and it’s like… one day it meant nothing.  and the next day it meant everything.  even when they admitted to themself that they had feelings for me, they still kinda thought i looked…”  He looked at you like a kicked puppy and lowered his voice.  “you still thought i looked kinda ugly?”

 

“Oof.  Well when you put it like that…”  
  
“BUT now, through some sorta wide-scale brain changes neuroscientists are gonna be studying for years to come, they think i’m the sexiest man alive, so it’s all good.”  His face lit right back up, and yours did, too.  Clearly, that was what mattered to him.  “in any case.  if i’m looking at this and remembering right, they had feelings for me wayyy before they ever showed any signs of it.”  
  
“…  I was scared,” you whispered to him, only for him to nod solemnly at the soul he was holding in his hands and whisper back, “i know.”

 

“to this day, they still see me as their best friend.  that’s a big part of why they’re so confident in this marriage.  they think that being married to your best friend is the best thing in the world, because you already know you wanna spend every moment of every day together.  and that’s what they wanna do with me.  they wanna laugh at my dumb jokes even when i’m old and forgetful and i keep telling ‘em the same ones over and over again.  have a family together.  get me away from all the bad things that have happened to me.  i…  they love _so much_.  so much more than they show, so much more than words can express.”  He looked to the people watching, many of whom had their hands over their hearts (or souls) right about now.  “i wish you all could feel it.  that’s the only way to really understand it.  they love me in each and every way it’s possible to love someone.  they love the life we already have together, and the life we have ahead of us.  they love all our friends, both human and monster.  they love their life like never before.”  After such eloquence, it was kind of comical and jarring when he left it off with an awkward, “that’s about it.  well, it’s not.  but if i tried to talk about everything, we’d be here all week and she’d probably immediately divorce me for spilling all her secrets.”  
  
Sans got laughter and applause from the onlookers for his part, and from you, a kiss on his forehead and a promise of, “Never.”

 

After that example, you felt a lot better about expressing the feelings and memories flowing throughout you right now.  Once the welcoming silence fell once again, you took a deep breath and spoke, letting words fall that, in the best way possible, didn’t feel like they were entirely your own.  
  
“Before Sans met me, there were two aspects of himself that lived in tandem with each other.  There was a part of himself that distrusted humans.  Didn’t hate them.  But distrusted them, certainly.  Examples in his life of humans being good were few and far between, even when monsterkind went free.  People…  people were _assholes_.”  
  
You could see it now, in his memory.  The judgmental stares, the sneers.  Even physical confrontations.  
  
“And then there was a part of himself that longed for a soulmate.  Not necessarily a romantic one, in fact, he was never looking for romance at all.  He just wanted someone to be his very best friend, to put him before anything else as long as he did the same for them.  Like Papyrus, but different from a brother.  He always felt like so many people knew him, but at the end of the day, nobody really… _knew_ him.  And he knew that was partially his fault, for…  for not really being open with people.  I guess…  what he was looking for was somebody who would make him feel like he _wanted_ to open up.  Somebody who made him feel like he wanted to talk about it all without it feeling like twisting knives in old wounds.”  
  
You could imagine that even Sans was confused about those feelings at that time in his life.  Feeling them directly from his soul, it was still hard to put them into words for him.  You looked to him for guidance and confirmation, and he gave you a small, approving nod.

  
“And those two parts of himself never existed in conflict, until he met me.”  The way that came out made the corner of your lip turn up in a smirk, like you were reading a script he wrote, and that line cracked you up.  “When I laughed at his jokes—even the bad ones—and understood his distrust, and his closed-off nature.  Respected his boundaries, but endlessly offered my help and compassion.  Treated him like he was no different from myself, except for the body he existed in…  that need for a companion in life won out.  He realized that the person he’d been waiting for all this time was here, and they were a human.  A kind human, with an open mind and a loving heart.  And luckily, by that time, I considered him a close friend of mine, too.  
  
“I think it goes without saying that the story doesn’t end there.  The first odd thing he noticed was that he never wanted to pull away from me when I touched him.  In fact, he found himself craving my physical attention.  Oh, yeah,” you laughed, slipping from his memories to your own for a moment.  “We hugged a _lot_.  And here I was, always worried I was pushing it with those extended hugs.  Turns out neither one of us wanted to let go.”  
  
“nope,” Sans confirmed.  “if i had it my way, we would’ve walked around like a couple of conjoined twins.”  
  
“Jesus, Sans.”  You continued without further ado, “Well I won’t get into the details, but there were a lot of confused, awkward feelings here.  I tell you all, Sans keeps it cool on the outside like nobody else, but on the inside?  You would not _believe_.”  You leaned down and whispered to him, “Dude, can I tell them about the pillow?”  
  
“can you tell them about the— **no** you _cannot_ tell them about the pillow!” he shouted a whisper back to you with his cheeks blue with embarrassment, making you giggle wildly.  “there are children present!”  
  
“Okay.  Sorry, everyone.  He doesn’t want me to tell you about it.”  You balanced his soul in one hand, using the other for just a moment to wipe happy tears from your eyes, before returning it.  “The important thing is, this was the first time he ever felt like this.  He knew the concept of romantic love, but never felt it or went looking for it.  So he wasn’t expecting it to one day just…  hit him.  But it did.”  Your voice softened, his soul seeming to warm in your hands at the memories you were exploring.  “It’s corny, but.  He really did know that he loved me when I first kissed him.  
  
“And it’s more than just love I gave him.  I gave him a sense of hope for the future that he hadn’t felt in a long, long time.  He stopped worrying about the day things would all be taken away from him, and started dreaming about what would happen if that day never came.  He learned to hope again.  And he thanks me for that.  Even though I would personally like to remind him that he should give himself a lot more credit for his own recovery…” you smiled down at him lovingly, “I’m glad that I was a part of that.  A _big_ part.  He has so many things he wants to do now.  But all of them involve me.  And being with me.  And always having my support, and supporting me in return.  He understands love now, even more than he did just before this wedding ceremony.  He understands how mutual and selfless it is now.  He’s not confused about anything anymore, he knows exactly what he wants.”  It all came out so quickly, so naturally, you almost forgot to breathe between your words.  “His soul has already been irreversibly bound to mine for a long, long time.  Today is just to show that to everyone and make it official.  But it’s still the happiest day of his life.  His love for me is one thing about himself that he wants _everybody_ to know.”  
  
“i considered getting us a couple of big, honkin’ wedding rings,” Sans jested, half to you and half to the audience.  “like the size of a ring pop.  so that people can see that we’re married from a mile away.  turns out they don’t sell ‘em that big.”  
  
More laughter, more applause.  You let out a deep breath, and Sans pulled you into his arms, whispering to you about what a good job you did, and how incredible it was to feel your soul, and how he never could’ve imagined what that would be like.  Slowly, tenderly, you returned each other’s soul to one another, and after lingering between you for a long moment, they disappeared back into your chests.  With the removal of your connection to his soul, it felt like a void opened up in you.  You hugged him closer, already yearning to connect with his soul again.  On your honeymoon, you promised yourself.  On your honeymoon, you would have all the time in the world to explore that deep, intimate connection…  
  
“… Given all you have found about one another and told us here today…” Asgore continued the ceremony, wiping a tear from his twinkling eyes, “Do you, Sans Gaster, take this human to be your lifelong partner, your greatest companion and soulmate, as long as your soul may sing its love for theirs as it has today?”

 

“i do.”  Sans didn’t even lift his head from your chest.  He didn’t want to stop hugging you.  He didn’t ever want to let go.  
  
“And do you,” Asgore addressed you, “take this monster to be your lifelong partner, your greatest companion and soulmate, as long as your soul may sing its love for his as it has today?”  
  
“I do.”  
  
“Then with the blessing of the king and all of monsterkind, may your souls be bound to one another in marriage forevermore.  For the first time in all of recorded history…” Asgore emphasized, “the human may now kiss their new monster husband.”  
  
“as much as they can without me having lips, anyways,” Sans added, before tangling his fingers in your hair.  “c’mere, my sunshine.”

 

The kiss you shared made you feel blind and deaf to anything other than him.  And for a moment, nothing else mattered.  Not anyone’s approval or disapproval, not your exact plans, not the backlash you might face, not even the fact that you were making history.

 

All that mattered was that neither of you ever wanted this happiness to end.


	17. Surface Road Trip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Publishing this one early in the day (at least in my timezone) so I can focus on studying and getting a good grade on this hell of a final exam and having a future and all that =)

The idea of a road trip with a significant other always seemed so romantic to you.  It was a way of appreciating your freedom together, a way of symbolizing your willingness to go to the ends of the earth together.  You always longed to experience that with someone.  The wind whipping through your hair, and whatever songs the two of you liked blasting on the radio loud enough to give you tinnitus.  
  
This wasn’t exactly how you’d imagined it would be.  
  
Firstly, while Sans was probably the best driver you knew, he was so short he had to sit on a pillow to see through the windshield properly.  You were also imagining some sort of romantic pop songs or soothing alternative guitar melodies to be the music in question blasting on the radio.  But it just so happened that Sans was a big fan of Weird Al Yankovic and not afraid to show it at the time of your big romantic road trip together, so you got to feast your ears on that.

 

 _I'll ace any trivia quiz you bring on_  
I'm fluent in JavaScript as well as Klingon  
  
You smirked, resting your cheek in your hand and staring out the window as he drove.  “Okay.  I can definitely see why you like this song.  It suits you.”  
  
Sans grinned at you in the rear view mirror and started goofily bobbing his head to the song while singing along.  
  
“i know in my heart they think i'm white and nerdy.  think i'm just too white and nerdy--”  
  
He nudged you insistently until you started singing along with him, “Think I’m just too white and nerdy!  Can’t you see I’m white and nerdy?”  
  
You laughed at each other, letting the song go on in the background, and Sans reached over to pinch your cheek.  
  
“you’re too cute, ya nerdlord.”  
  
“Keep your hands on the steering wheel, Weenie Hut Jr.”

  
“okay, dorkzilla.”  
  
While he concentrated on his driving, you leaned forward and started messing with the GPS.  Still another couple of hours to go.  Usually long car trips would be mind-numbingly boring for you.  Despite your romanticism of the concept of a road trip with the one you loved, you couldn’t really remember ever having an enjoyable road trip before.  But this?  Goofing off with your boyfriend to his silly music, away from everything else?  You almost wished you had more than just two hours left to go.  
  
“…  wanna play i spy?” he offered.    
You got the sense that he was anxious not to let you get bored, so you tried to tell him, “Honey, we did that earlier.  It’s fine, you don’t have to distract—”  
  
“i spy with my little eye… a total baaaabe.”  He was looking right at you in the rear-view mirror again, with that big cheesy grin of his.  Oh.  He didn’t _actually_ want to play.  He just wanted to flirt with you.  
  
“Ugh.  I’m not playing.”  You reclined your seat and crossed your arms.  But, like you did most of the time, you ended up giving in and playing along after a long moment of him looking dejected.  “…  I spy with my little eye the most handsome monster in the world.”  
  
There.  Now he didn’t look dejected anymore.  He looked even happier than before.  “i spy with my little eye someone who’s gonna get hugged and kissed and cuddled so much tonight.  they don’t even know what’s coming to ‘em.”  
  
“I spy with my little eye the smartest guy I’ve ever known.”  
  
“i spy with my little eye our hotel.”  
  
“What?”  You tried to figure out how that was a compliment, because he said it in the same tone as the rest of his statements, but then you, too, spotted your hotel in the distance.  “Oh.  I thought you were calling me a hotel.”  
  
“nah.  just the first three letters of it.”  He made finger guns at you.  “ayyyyy~”  
  
“Ayyyy!”  You did it back at him, then gently reminded him, “Hands on the wheel, dear.”  
  
“sorry.”  



	18. Wild Summer Weather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I dedicate this one to the fact that it's going to be over 100 degrees (F) here this week...

You always knew, one day, Sans would have to take off that thick jacket of his besides just to sleep.  He had the capability of sweating, so clearly that meant his body was able to overheat, and clearly that meant he had to get uncomfortable from excessive heat!

 

But that didn’t happen until it was 105 degrees Fahrenheit outside, in the direct sun, and he had to stay out there with you while you did your grocery shopping.

 

“babe…” he panted from behind you as you walked along the sidewalk with your groceries, “babe please.  we have paps’ car.  we could drive there and back.  and not have to carry all this stuff.  why do you do this to yourself.”  
  
“Don’t be a drama kiiing.  It’s pretty toasty, but it’s been worse.”  You shifted the grocery bag to your other hand, ignoring your boyfriend’s disbelieving stare.  
  
“it gets worse than this.”  
  
“Sometimes.  Usually around July.  Yeah.”

 

“… i’m gonna diiie, verte-baaabe…”  
  
“Literally just take off your jacket.”

 

Sans groaned at that.  “but it’s my trademark.  how are people gonna recognize me without it?”  
  
“Oh, you don’t think the shortness and the cute little face and the fact that you’re literally one of only two skeleton monsters anybody knows will clue anybody in?”  
  
“…  nah, it’s definitely the jacket.”  
  
You pulled Sans against your side and affectionately promised him, “That’s it.  I’m going to give you something lighter to wear than that old thing.  At least for the summer.  Once it cools down again, you can wear that tattered old thing all you like.”  
  
“…  ok…  but it has to be one of _your_ things.  isn’t it, like… mandatory for couples to wear each other’s clothes.”  
  
“Yep.  I’d say basically mandatory.  Got something in mind?”  
  
Sans thought for a long, long moment.  You thought maybe he was thinking up something goofy, but he gave you a totally sincere, “yeah, actually.  i was, uh.  just thinking.  you always look so damn good in flannel.  i don’t think i’d look anywhere near as good as you in it.  but i can certainly try, right?”  
  
You glanced down at yourself.  You were, indeed, wearing flannel.  “…  Are you just trying to say I look nice today?”  
  
“you sure do, pumpkin.  but i meant it, too.”  
  
“In that case…”  You found a good spot in the shade to stop for a minute.  Sans seemed antsy about getting home, but he stopped, too, to stay by your side and see what you were up to.  He blushed a little when you slipped your flannel jacket from your shoulders, and looked mildly surprised when you handed it over to him right then and there.  
  
“awh.  thanks, babe.  well, how can i say no?”  He started removing his much thicker jacket.  “you can have mine—”  
  
“Nah,” you quickly told him.  “You carry it.”  
  
“and here i thought you were immune to the heat.”  
  
“No.  I just dress appropriately for it.  You should give it a try.”  
  
And he did, with your flannel jacket.  Contrary to his own opinion, you thought he totally rocked your outfit.  Even though it was too long on his short little body, and the sleeves hung down over his hands until he rolled them up.  He looked comfier, too.  And that was the most important thing.  
  
But _damn_ , he looked good.


	19. Cricket Songs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which reader has a pet frog because I reeeaalllyyy wish I had a pet frog  
> (I would name it Sans)

It was becoming increasingly and painfully obvious to Sans that his crush on you was getting out of control.  For example…  
  
_Sansafras: kk this time we’ll put on moana since we’ve already seen it_

 _Vertebae: Yep, sounds good.  Goodnight, Sans :)_  
  
Here he was, texting with you early in the morning about which goddamn movie to _fall asleep_ to, and he was wishing you were there next to him to fall asleep with.

 

He wished he was in your room—no, he wished your room WAS his room.  He kind of wished you shared the same living space, and he could feel free to leave his socks all over your floor and make it a place for the both of you.  But that wasn’t a very chill or platonic thing to think, now was it?  
  
Nor was it very chill or platonic to close his eyes and imagine that he was in your bed and not his.  In a chaste way, of course.  He just wanted to lie next to you, but it was still new and weird and jarring for him because he’d never wanted to lie next to someone like that before.

 

There was just one thing missing…  the cricket songs.

 

You had a pet frog in your room, and you fed it a steady diet of live crickets, among other things.  So year-round, he’d noticed, one could frequently hear the muted chirping of those lucky survivor crickets in your room, if it got quiet.  It made for some very funny moments of silence that would have otherwise been genuinely awkward.

 

He wanted to simulate that, wanted to feel like he was really there, just relaxing in your bed instead of his without a care in the world.  Maybe a few months in the future, when he could ask for that without being awkward.  In the meantime, he just liked to pretend.

 

So he opened his window and let the sounds roll in.  Distant cars and the rustling of wind through the leaves of the trees…  and crickets.  The gentle, familiar sound of crickets.

 

That helped his imagination.  Plus, it was sure to cool his room down and make it a bit less musty than it otherwise perpetually was.

 

With that taken care of, he settled back down into his bed, rested his weary skull on his pillow and bundled his blanket around him until he was a cozy, happy little skeleton burrito.  Tonight didn’t feel like a nightmare night.  He anticipated either dreaming of something sweet or of nothing at all.  The thought of either scenario comforted him, as did the cricket song.  
  
It reminded him of you, and it reminded him of his freedom, and it reminded him of a combination of the two.  You were a part of his freedom.  A big part of what even made him so happy to _be_ free.  Something that made the surface significantly better than the underground.  He didn’t wonder anymore what to do with his life, or feel like he was missing out on anything.  He was happy where he was.  He couldn’t think of a time in his life where that had ever been true before.


	20. Mini Golf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to my last and hardest final exam right after posting this. pray 4 me

Mini golf was a great couple’s activity to get you and Sans off the couch and out of the house.  It was nice and slow-paced and pretty relaxing, with just a hint of that competitive spirit you shared with each other.

 

Well, maybe _shared_ wasn’t an entirely accurate term.  While Sans did think it was funny to totally outpace you in some things, he got much more pleasure out of letting you win and seeing how happy you got whenever you had the opportunity to rub one of your victories in his face.

 

In this case, he was absolutely relishing in how excited you were getting that you always scored holes in one or at least just under par.  
  
“Holy shit, sugar skull!  Did you see that?  I’m on FIRE today!”

 

“y’sure are!” Sans gushed over you, giving you a congratulatory clap on the back.  “i bet you’re setting records here at this golf course.  maybe you should consider a professional career.”  
  
“…  Alright, don’t get carried away.”  You walked with him to the next hole, hand in hand.  And there, the process began all over again.

 

You teed up your ball and took your time.  Mapped out where you wanted to hit the ball, how it would deflect, how hard and when you wanted to hit it.  There was an obstacle on this course—a pendulum swinging back and forth.  
  
And when you miscalculated your swing, Sans manipulated the golf ball’s trajectory mid-roll.  He was subtle about it, as he’d been for the last six holes or so.  He only sped it up a little, and swerved it just a little bit to the right to avoid the pendulum that otherwise would’ve surely knocked it into the water hazard.  He didn’t want you to catch on that he was totally cheating the game on your behalf.  
  
He just loved to see that confident, victorious smile of yours.  
  
“Yesss!”  You turned to him and bumped fists with him.  After all, your victories were his victories.  That’s how couples work, right?  
  
“awesome.”  He grinned up at you before taking his own turn.  The funny thing was, he didn’t use his powers on his own turns.  He played it straight.  And he was decent!  He hardly ever came in over par.  But using his magic on your turns yielded significant improvement, and his non-magic attempts were no match for that.  “man.  how are you so good at everything?”  
  
“Because you usually help me~”  
  
He looked at you with a light blue blush on his cheeks.  “oops.  busted.”  
  
“Hehe.  It’s fine.  It’s cute how you think I can’t win on my own.”  You leaned on your golf club and watched him with quiet amusement.  
  
“it’s not that!  i just!  wanted to make sure!” he stuttered out defensively.  
  
“It’s fiiine, honey.  Besides.  I didn’t just mean as in you help me cheat at games with your magic.  I mean as in you support me all the time.  Make me feel like I can do stuff…  like I’m confident.  I was never very confident before.”  
  
“yeah…  i get that.  me neither.”  Sans looked at you like he forgot where he was for a second, then shook his head and got back to his golf ball.  “okay.  i’ll stop.  as long as you promise you’ll still smile like that if i end up winning.”  
  
“I’d like to see you TRY to catch up at this point, bone boy.  Let’s see what you’ve got!”


	21. My, What A Fine Pie!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh reader, you oblivious, beautiful disaster you.

You didn’t know what it was, but something about the way Sans fawned over Toriel’s cooking drove you absolutely up the wall.

 

You didn’t know what to make of it.  You’d never before been jealous over somebody’s _cooking abilities_ , of all things.  You took pride in your lazy cuisine, where pretty much the only time you ever made anything from scratch was if there was some sort of special event or you were otherwise trying to treat yourself.  You and Sans had that in common.

 

So why did it piss you off so much, seeing him smile up at that beautiful goat lady, swing his little slippered feet and tell her she still makes the best pie he’s ever tasted?

 

It wasn’t like he was being cloying.  Even all the salt inside you right now couldn’t obscure the delicate, flaky crust or the sweet, juicy blueberries bursting on your tongue.  It was a _damn_ good pie.  Did your brain think this was some kind of hypocrisy or betrayal of your shared proclivity for lazy cooking and eating?  Was it somehow unfair that he was praising such high-effort cooking instead of brushing it off as excessive?  Or were you really just mad that Toriel, an elderly woman who had been cooking all her life, was a better cook than you?  
  
…  Yeah, it had to be that.  
  
In that case, you knew what you needed to do.  You waited until Sans had to go home, and then, once you were alone with Toriel, you asked the pro to teach you some of her skills.  
  
You decided to focus on just one dish.  You didn’t expect to become a baking expert in just one night, but mastering a single dish seemed feasible.  Besides that, you enjoyed spending quality time with Toriel, who, up until now, had been best categorized as a friend of a friend to you.  The two of you got along incredibly well.  You didn’t need Sans to be there to trade awful jokes—in fact, something about them coming out of the muzzle of an unassuming old lady made them even funnier to you.  And you gossiped a lot about Sans.  Affectionate gossip.  You both loved that funky little bone man so much.  
  
And at the end of the night, you were confident in your ability to bake one mean strawberry rhubarb pie.  
  
Unfortunately, when you decided to make it a week later and show off what you learned to Sans, you kind of forgot exactly how the recipe went.  You probably made a couple of unwise substitutions.  
  
So that was how you ended up frantically shoving the ruined pie in the microwave to hide it when Sans came over to visit.  
  
“damn, buddy.  smells good in here.  didja cook something for me?”  
  
Well.  You tried to.  
  
“What?  Oh, that?  Nah, that’s…  I lit a scented candle.”  
  
Sans tilted his head at you a little, analyzing your face.  You forgot how good he was at telling when people were lying to him, and what they were thinking.  He must have been really confused over why you would lie to him about cooking something.  
  
But he didn’t call you out on it.  He just shrugged and walked past you into the house, hands in his pockets.  “shucks.  the smell is making me hungry.”  
  
“I’ll make you something,” you offered.    
  
And while Sans was usually one to turn down hospitality, he was never one to turn down food.  So he confirmed, “that sounds awesome.”  
  
Sans always raided your fridge.  It was one of his privileges as your best friend.  So you thought nothing of it when he followed you into the kitchen and started poking around in your fridge, freezer and pantry.  He seemed to have picked out nothing more than a bag of potato chips, but the moment you turned your back…  
  
“ooh.  what’s this?”  
  
The dumbass went and opened your microwave to heat up some frozen hot dog bites.  
  
You abandoned your post pouring the chips into the bowl to speed walk over to him and slam the microwave door back shut.  
  
“You didn’t see NOTHIN’.”  
  
“yes i did.”  He popped it back open, stretched up on the tips of his toes to reach, and pulled your… “pie…” down on to the counter.  
  
Something had gone terribly wrong with the filling, you see.  It was so watery that, even after a full night of refrigeration, it could still be chemically classified as a _liquid_ with absolutely no scientific debate.  
  
Something had gone horribly wrong with the crust, too.  You clearly hadn’t been expecting it to expand as much as it did, and on top of that, you’d tried to shape it into a little ribcage shape on top of the filling.  Which was a cute idea!  But the ribcage was now a barely-recognizable, blobby mess of shapes, some of which were pouring over the sides of the pie dish.  
  
Sans was silent for a moment while you both stared in shock and awe at the mess you made of a perfectly good pie recipe.  Then he snorted.  
  
“Shut up, Sans.”  
  
Then he burst out laughing.  You couldn’t remember the last time you’d seen him laugh so deeply and so genuinely.  You weren’t sure if he ever had.  “th…  the crust though!”  
  
“Shut uuup, Sans!”  
  
“what did you dooo?!”  Sans shoved it in your face dramatically.  “you can’t hide it.  can’t deny it any longer.  **_look at what you have done._** ”  
  
You confiscated the pie from him and chucked it, dish and all, into the trash can, your face red with embarrassment.  
  
“I tried to make a pie.”  
  
“clearly!”  Sans wheezed, wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his jacket.  “can i please just look at it one more time.  it’s so perfect.  i’mgonnadie.”  
  
“Yes, you are, and I will be the one to kill you.”  
  
Unexpectedly, Sans hugged you.  The humor of the moment must have made him feel affectionate.  It had certainly made you feel affectionate.  You hugged him back.  
  
“dude.  i love it.  i love your pie.  i love you.  you’re just so awesome.”  
  
And for the first time that day, you didn’t feel quite so embarrassed.  You cracked a big, helpless smile.  
  
Maybe some things were more important than being a good cook.


	22. She Sells Sea Shells

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a good companion drabble to the lemonade stand one.

Sans loved the ocean.  Not swimming in it—he was more of a lazing-around-in-the-sun kind of guy.  But he loved the vastness of it.  The way it stretched out forever into the horizon.  The knowledge that it contained so many strange life forms that even the advanced modern technology of the surface world hadn’t detected yet.  
  
So cool.  
  
He spent several hours there with Papyrus before they decided it was time to head back to their place—but not before visiting the gift shop.  Another thing Sans loved was knick knacks, and that was one thing he and Papyrus actually both agreed on.  They both loved collecting little reminders of their adventures on the surface.  
  
Plus, Sans wanted to get some newer, bigger shells for his pet hermit crab.  
  
Papyrus was much more interested in the “COOL, FUNKY CLOTHING!”, so they were at opposite sides of the store when you approached the smaller skeleton.  
  
“Can I help you find anything?”  
  
Sans turned to look at you, and…  he didn’t know what it was.  Store workers asked him that all the time (some of them with a tone to their voice like they were trying to rush him out of the joint) but when he heard your voice and looked at your smiling face he forgot what he was doing, where he was and what words were.  
  
“hi.”  His face went blue.  _That_ wasn’t an appropriate response to your question.  And the way you giggled at him only made his cheeks get bluer.  
  
“Good afternoon!”  Your voice was chipper, in that artificial way that any customer service worker’s voice is, and yet artificial as it was, it was still special somehow.  “Just wanted to check in with you, make sure you’re finding everything alright.”  
  
Reality faded back in once you repeated your question.  Oh, right.  Whoa.  _Whoa_.  “actually yeah.  the new digs for shell-don.”  He paused awkwardly, before elaborating, “my hermit crab.”  
  
“Oh.  Awwwh!”  You laughed, genuinely this time, at one of _his_ jokes, and that made it _so_ much better.  “Shell-don.  That’s cute.  Well, we have some great sea shells for that over here.  Not painted or anything, just shells we find out in the water, so they’re perfect for hermies.”  
  
You brought him over to the shells, but it took him a moment to start looking through them.  He was looking at your face.  You had to gesture for him to examine them before he did it.  
  
“ooh.  these are perfect.”  He picked one that looked nice, then turned back to you with an eager smile.  “d’you have any hermit crabs?”  
  
“…  In the store?”  
  
“what?  no.  at home.  as a pet.  you.”  
  
“Oh, me!”  He could tell by your change in expression that you were mildly surprised but delighted to be chatted with as a person rather than just a shopkeeper.  “Well, not at the moment.  But I think they’re very cute.”  
  
“in a weird, ugly kinda way.”  
  
“Heh!  Exactly!”  
  
“like me.”  
  
You didn’t even really get a chance to react to that before you were interrupted.  
  
“SANS, STOP FLIRTING WITH THE SHOPKEEPER AND COME HELP ME PICK OUT A COOL SUMMER SHIRT!  I NEED YOUR OPINION!  SO THAT I CAN PROBABLY PICK THE OPPOSITE CHOICE TO WHAT YOU SAY!”  
  
Sans’ voice was fast and nervous, as if he’d been caught red-handed.  “weweretalkingabouthermitcrabs.”  
  
You smiled and rolled your eyes.  “Siblings, am I right?  Go on.  Help him pick out something nice.  I’ll be here all summer.  Sans, was it?”  
  
“heh.  yeah.”  
  
“I’ll see you later~”  
  
“you’re darn tootin’ you will.”


	23. Summer Garden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You and Sans continue to be dorks in love.

You and Sans were a proper couple by now.  You had been a proper couple for awhile.  But you’d never felt quite so much like one as you did when you went on a walk through a nearby flower garden that was open for the summer.  You felt totally old-fashioned, strolling through the classic symbols of love with your hand in the crook of his arm.  
  
“y’know,” he mused to you.  “i didn’t used to like flowers much.”  
  
“Uh oh,” you chuckled, bumping him with your hip.  “Did I pick the wrong date location?”  
  
“i didn’t _used_ to like them much,” he emphasized.  “’till they started reminding me of you.”  
  
He stopped for a moment to admire a rose bush, and since you were holding on to his arm, you stopped with him.  
  
“y’know something cool i learned the other day?”  That was how he always started out before going on some cute scientific tangent.  “that blue roses aren’t a thing.  and they tried to make blue roses a thing by putting the biosynthetic precursors and enzymes for the pigment in violets and irises into white roses.  and it didn’t work out and just kinda made lavender-colored roses.”  He scratched his skull.  “…  i dunno why they didn’t use pigment from something like forget-me-nots.  like something that’s actually really blue.  maybe they’re not genetically related enough…?”  
  
“I was gonna say.  Why use _violets_.  To get _blue_ pigment?”  
  
“dunno.  plant biology isn’t my specialty.  just thought it was neat.”  With that, he reached out, plucked one of the roses, and handed it to you with a cheesy, romantic grin.  “and roses are super pretty.  just like you.”  
  
“…  Sans, you’re not supposed to pick the flowers in a public garden.”  
  
“…  but it’s just ooone…”  
  
“And if everybody took _just one_ , then there would be none left.”  
  
“well it’s already picked now.  i can’t unpick it.  may as well make it so the picking wasn’t in vain, eh?”  He checked to make sure the small bit of stem that had cleaved with the flower didn’t have any thorns on it, then gently tucked it behind your ear.  You didn’t stop him—he did have a point.  You continued walking, passing along a row of tall sunflowers.  
  
“Okay.  But if you pick any more flowers,” you chided him, “no smooches for you until we get home.”  
  
Believe it or not, that was a real threat.  You and Sans kissed all the time, especially on dates, despite the fact that he didn’t have lips.  And he adored those kisses.  So he sighed and acquiesced.  
  
“fiiine.  that’ll teach _me_ to be romantic.”  
  
“You’ve always been romantic.  Mostly when you weren’t trying to be.”  
  
“puns are _super_ romantic.”  
  
“To me they are!”  
  
Despite what you’d just been playfully bickering over, you picked an especially pretty petunia for him.  Suddenly realizing his lack of ears, and therefore lack of a spot to tuck the flower, you stuck it up his nostril.  
  
It immediately fell out, of course.  But not before Sans laughed at the effort.  
  
“hypocrite.”  
  
“You know you love it.”  
  
“i know i do.”


	24. A Midsummer Night's Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did I say this was all going to be fluff?
> 
> I'm sorry.
> 
> I lied. =(

Your room, your home, the space in which you existed and lived your life most comfortably, had all become his.  His clothes were in your closet, his socks were on your floor.  Little symbols of the life you’d built, and were still happily in the process of building, together.  
  
He went to bed that night with the happiest thoughts rattling around in his skull.  Thoughts about the surprisingly delicious dinner you’d cooked up together off a recipe from the internet, about the long talk you’d had about the possibility of having kids together one day in the future, about you.  Just about you.  
  
He went to bed that night with your fan blowing on his face to combat the muggy summer heat.  Your AC was on, humming white noise in the background, but it didn’t always work very well.  Plus, the two of you wanted to cuddle, no matter how warm it got, no matter how much sweat formed between the two of you and made your skin stick slightly to his bones.  It somehow became pleasant.  A reminder, like everything else in your room, that the two of you were together from now on.  Forever.  
  
It was supposed to be forever.  
  
But he went to bed that night in that familiar spot, in your familiar room, with your familiar arms around him, and then he woke up somewhere cold.  Cold, but not unfamiliar.  Cold, but just as messy.  
  
He woke up in his old room.  In Snowdin.  
  
“… no.”  
  
The possibility was so far removed from his mind at this point, he felt certain of its unreality.  
  
“it’s not real, sans.  it’s not real,” he told himself.  
  
He pulled his knees up to his chest, hugged them, bowed his head, pressed his forehead to his forearms.  
  
“i’ll wake up,” he whispered, eye sockets squeezed shut.  “i have to wake up.  i don’t want to be here.  not again.  i can’t be here anymore.”  
  
He waited.  
  
He opened his eyes.  
  
An empty, shitty, messy room.  In Snowdin.  The chill of the room seeped through his bones and seemed to permeate straight to his soul.  
  
“i…  i want to be back with them.”  
  
Already, he could feel the echoes of the last timeline—the _best_ timeline he’d ever had the honor of living in—slipping away from him like marbles on glass.  In a shaking, stumbling panic, he threw himself at his desk, laid out a pencil and paper, and set to work.  
  
The first thing he tried to do was draw your face.  He didn’t want to forget your face.  If there was one thing he wanted to make sure to remember, it was your face.  That way, the first time he saw you, he could make sure he remembered how special you were to him.  
  
But it was slipping away too fast.  He could remember your presence and the way you made him feel.  But your face was a blur in his memory, and your name…  you name was…  
  
Fuck.  He didn’t know.  He didn’t _know_ anymore.  
  
His soul pounded wildly in his chest.  He just wanted to cry.  This wasn’t fair.  The kid promised never again.  They _promised_.  And here he was, with only seconds left to remember you.  What could he do to make it last, when he couldn’t even remember your name, let alone put it to a face?  
  
He drew one upside-down soul and one rightside-up soul next to one another, and he wrote:  
  
_i don’t know, but out of anyone i’ve ever met they always made me the happiest.  they don’t deserve to be forgotten.  don’t forget them.  don’t forget._

 _i love them._  
  
And then his life with you was nothing but the fading echoes of the most wonderful dream he’d ever had.


	25. Rollercoasters and Waterslides

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to fluff, as promised!

In a lot of ways, you and Sans were practically the same person.  You had lazy tendencies, loved bad jokes and junk food and leaving your room messy.  On the other hand, there were a lot of aspects in which you were…  well, to put it romantically, you were each other’s other half.  You were polar opposites.

Your love for rollercoasters was an example of the latter case.  
  
“babe.  there is no way i’m going on that.  _no way_.”  
  
The two of you were holding hands, looking up at the biggest and most thrilling rollercoaster in the park.  
  
“C’monnn.  I’ve been on it before.  It’s TONS of fun.  It seems scary, but I promise you, the moment you get off the ride, all you want is to get right back on and do it again!”  
  
Sans swallowed nervously.  Somehow he doubted that.  
  
“…  why don’tcha just go on it with papyrus and undyne?  they love this stuff.”  
  
“Well, they went to try and find food!  Papyrus was being picky.  Besides.  There’s a camera right at the big drop.  I wanna get one of those souvenir pictures from our ride.  With me kissing you.”  
  
“you want a picture of the most terrifying kiss of my life?”  
  
“Don’t be a drama kiiing.”  You held his hand in both of yours and started pulling him along.  “Come onnn.”  
  
“the lazy river ride over in the water park is more my speed, babe.”  
  
“We’ll go there right after.  I promise.”  
  
“sure.  just throw my dust into the water and i’ll always be with you, for as long as you’re in your floatie.”  
  
Your boyfriend had a morbid sense of humor sometimes, and it cracked you up like nothing else.  
  
Despite his protests, he began to follow you along of his own volition.  You were still holding hands, but you didn’t have to drag him along or anything.  
  
Still.  As you stood in line, he became strangely silent, and excessively sweaty.  You jabbed him with your elbow playfully.  
  
“How you holding up, sugar skull?”  
  
“you will be sorry when i’m dead and gone.”  
  
God, his dark, deep, serious tone there made you laugh so hard, you couldn’t stop laughing all the way until you got to the front of the line.  
  
But just as soon as you were about to get on board, Sans let go of your hand and made a run for it.  
  
For a moment there, you thought he was straight-up just abandoning you and running for an exit.  But instead, he made a beeline for the…  oh.  
  
There was a height restriction for this ride.  He was pressing his back to the height chart.  
  
And he was coming up just a little too short.  
  
The ride attendant had probably never seen someone, especially a grown-ass man, so happy to be too short to ride the ride.  Sans pointed at it emphatically and drew the attendant’s attention by calling out, “look, look, i’m too short, i’m too short!  oh man.”  He looked to you.  “what a shame.  i was totally gonna brave this ‘coaster with you, but i guess.  you’re just gonna have to go alone.”  
  
You pouted at him, crossing your arms to show your disappointment.    
  
“i’ll seeya on the other side, alright?  and i’ll give you a kiss to make up for the one you’re not gettin’—or at least i hope you’re not gettin’—on the ride.”  
  
So he got out of that one.  He didn’t, however, get out of going on the four-person waterslide alongside you, Papyrus, and Undyne once the four of you regrouped and advanced to the water park section.  
  
He clung to you for dear life the entire time.


	26. Check Out My Guns…of WATER!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fuckin dorks.

Sans thought the war was over when your several-months-long, surprise-tickle-attack-fest petered out.  The tickle war had come to a peaceful conclusion in which both sides kind of mutually forgot that the war was going on.  He could barely remember, but he was pretty sure he was the one who tickled you last, and you never tickled him back.  Did that make him the victor?  
  
In any case, where the tickle war left off, a whole new war began…  
  
It all started while he was lazing around on your couch.  You approached him with your hands behind your back and an impish smile on your face.  
  
“Hey Saaans…”  you sang.  
  
He didn’t need to be as extremely perceptive as he was to tell that you were up to something mischievous.  He sat up and quirked a brow bone at you, an easy-going but curious smile on his face.  
  
“yeah, babe?  whatcha got there?”  
  
“Wait.  I have a question for you first.  It’s pretty warm in here, huh?  You feel warm?”  
  
He didn’t know where you were going with this, but he played along.  “yeah.  maybe we should turn on the ac or something.”  
  
“Ah.  Alright.”  You cleared your throat, seeming happy to confirm that he was feeling the heat.  “Check this out.”  You struck a dorky pose with your hands still behind your back, distributing your weight to one hip.  
  
“I’m Bond,” you told him in an exaggerated low voice, as if trying to imitate his.  “James Bond.”  
  
And then you squirted him right in the sternum with a water pistol.  
  
Sans’ eyesockets widened momentarily, then, as he realized what you’d done, he laughed and tried to grab the water pistol out of your hands.  
  
“gimme that!”  
  
“Nooo!  It’s for defeating you!”  You kept pulling the trigger, sending bursts of water all over the front of his shirt, soaking it and making it stick to the ribs underneath.  
  
But he managed to wrestle the little water pistol out of your hands, and now that he had it, he showed no mercy.  He aimed carefully—so that he didn’t get directly in your eyes or anything, of course—and shot a stream of water directly against your forehead.  
  
Still, you sputtered, and quickly wiped it from your face.  He tried to keep shooting it at you, but after that very first pull of the trigger, the next few resulted in nothing more than a weak spritz.  
  
“Awwwh, out of ammo.”  You took it back from him, and finally explained.  “I found it with some old pool stuff while I was getting things ready for all the swimming trips I have planned this summer.  And do you wanna know the best part?”  
  
Sans was preoccupied with examining his soaked T-shirt, but he was listening.  “yeah?”  
  
“There’s two.”  
  
He looked up at you.  The joy in his eyes was indescribable.  
  
“there’s two?”  
  
“There’s two,” you repeated.  “I put the other one on your desk.  Fully loaded.  With water.  So let the games begin…”  
  
The water gun war lasted all summer long, until it got cold enough again that it felt mean to spray each other.


	27. Dog Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I like taking titles literally.

The bed was always more than warm enough in the summer even with just you and Sans in it.  You always had to crack open a window at night, and it always took an hour or two before cuddling together was completely comfortable instead of cozy but a little stifling.  But you found that perfect balance, just the two of you.  And that balance was especially important right now, at the most blisteringly hot time of the year.  
  
That balance was thrown off with the introduction of your new pet dog.  
  
Now, Sans never would’ve been one to go out and buy or adopt a dog.  He knew dogs were high-maintenance pets.  But when he saw that poor, abandoned, emaciated, beautiful little Husky pup abandoned out on the road, what was he supposed to do?  Leave her there?  Drop her off at a shelter?  
  
He was too much of a softie for that.  He brought her home and hoped you wouldn’t mind.  
  
Of course, this was all very unexpected for you.  But having a pet dog together was good practice for having kids together one day, right?  Not at all comparable, you knew, but still.  It would be an experience.  
  
And the dog was cute as hell.  
  
The only problem was, she liked to jump up on your bed and curl up on both of you while you were trying to cuddle, and neither of you had the heart to refuse her.  You weren’t the type of dog owners to prohibit your dog from jumping up on the furniture.  
  
And so, during these hot days at the peak of summer, you were suddenly reminded that the balance of heat exchange while you and Sans were cuddling was a delicate one indeed.  When Balta (Sans picked out the name) curled up on top of you, you found that neither of you could sleep.  
  
“…  Okay, Sans,” you whispered to him.  “One of us three is gonna have to go.”  
  
He nodded with feigned solemnness.  “…  i understand, babe.  i’ll do it.  for you.  i’ll go sleep on the couch…”  
  
You giggled softly.  “No, Sans.  Just put the dog on the floor.”  
  
“but the dog is better than me.”  
  
“No she’s not!”  
  
“she’s cuter than me.  for sure.”  
  
“NOBODY and NOTHING is cuter than you, Sans.”  
  
“and she’ll just jump right back up.”  
  
“Don’t know ‘till you try!”  
  
So Sans tried.  He gently picked up the now-hefty dog and placed her on the floor by the side of your bed.  Lo and behold, she didn’t get the message, and jumped right back up.  She didn’t even seem to realize that she was pestering you.  She wagged her tail, panted at you, looked at you with the brightest, happiest eyes, and then turned in a circle and curled right back up where she’d tried to fall asleep before.  
  
“see?”  
  
“It was worth a shot.”  
  
Welp.  This was your life now.  Getting smothered and overheated together by your loving pet dog.  It certainly wasn’t the worst problem to have.


	28. Make A Wish!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or seven wishes! :)

“seven.”  
  
“What?  Are you kidding?  I missed ANOTHER one?”  
  
“that makes seven, babe,” Sans confirmed, and jotted down another little tally mark on his notepad.  “seven shooting stars tonight.  that means seven wishes for later.”  
  
“Where was it this time?”  
  
“my side of the sky.  wayyy to the right.  duh.”  
  
You and Sans had split up the work of watching the sky for shooting stars.  As you sat on the blanket you’d laid out on the ground, hands overlapping in the middle, you watched the general left side of the sky, and he watched the general right side.  
  
You knew that you were usually supposed to make a wish the moment you saw the shooting star, but Sans didn’t want to take the small chance of missing one that might come in rapid succession to another, so you were instead tallying up every one the two of you saw and summing them up in the end to see how many wishes you got.  
  
Of course, because you were soulmates and all, you decided it still counted for both of you even if only one of you actually saw any particular shooting star.  
  
“What are you even going to do with all these wishes, Sans?” you mused, eyes never leaving the sky, as much as you wanted to look over at your handsome boyfriend.  
  
“hm.  you first.”  
  
You thought long and hard.  “…  A million dollars.”  
  
“why not a billion?”  
  
“Okay, fine, a billion dollars.  But I’d use 999 million of it for charity and stuff.  Make the world better.  I’d only keep the last million.”  
  
“niiice.”  
  
“Okay.  I told you one.  Now you tell me one.”  
  
Sans had to take awhile to think, too.  You passed the time by drumming your fingertips playfully over the back of his hand, then wrapped your hand around his so you were fully holding it.  
  
“…  i guess…  my biggest wish is for everything to stay the way it is.”  
  
His words tore your eyes from the sky and directed them to his face.  That was quite a thing to say under the wistful assumption that he could wish for anything in the world.  
  
“that’s all i’ve ever wanted,” he went on.  “is to find a place in my life where i’m really happy and to just…  stay there.  forever. permanence is the most comforting thought in the world to me.  well, i’ve found the part of my life where i’m happy with the way everything is.  now i just need it to stay.”  A thought seemed to occur to him all of a sudden, evident in the slight tilt of his head to one side.  “well.  not exactly the same.  but, uh.  progressing in the natural order of things, i guess.”  
  
“The natural order of things?” you repeated questioningly.  
  
“yeah.  i wanna get older, and watch paps get older.  i wanna make new friends.  maybe get back into science.  if not as a career at least as a hobby.  i want my mental health to keep improving… and…  well, y’know.”  He shrugged, trying to seem as easy-going as ever, even as he brought up something incredibly important to him: “i didn’t go into this relationship planning on staying just your boyfriend forever.”  
  
He must’ve noticed your joy at such a statement, because he blushed and quickly went on, “like i said.  after the shit i’ve been through.  something permanent is all i want in the world.”  
  
You pulled your knees to your chest and smiled at him.  You loved when he got all heartfelt and romantic.  “Me too.  So what about the other six wishes?”  
  
“…  y’know how i wanted to go to that midnight showing of the new star wars movie this weekend—"  
  
“I already said I’d go with you.”  
  
“—and i wanted to dress up as han solo and chewbacca—”  
  
“Oh.  Sans, no.”  
  
“—and i wanted you to be chewbacca…”  
  
You rolled your eyes at him, though the affectionate smile never left your face.  “Is that really one of your wishes?”  
  
“i don’t got much else to wish for.  i already told you i’ve got everything i need already to make me happy.  so yeah.  i wish you would be my chewie.”  
  
“Whatever turns you on, sugar skull.”


	29. Kiss The Cook!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haven't had any Sans and reader with their kids in awhile so here you go :))

Sans was a natural at many of the qualities that made a good and stereotypical father.  He was a major couch potato.  He was very lax about spoiling the kids.  He was way too attached to his motorcycle.  He didn’t even have to work on his dad bod.  And the terrible dad jokes came to him just as naturally.  So what kind of dad would Sans be if he didn’t know how to fry up mediocre burgers and other meats on an outdoor grill?  
  
In all seriousness, though, your husband could be a decent cook when he tried.  You were hungry and so looking forward to chowing down on one of those burgers.  
  
Apparently so was your son Sitka, because he was slinking up behind his dad, ketchup bottle in his hands, like a squirrel trying to steal chips from a picnic.  
  
“hey kiddo,” your husband warned him without even looking his way, “don’t get too close to the grill, ok?  it’s hot.”  
  
There had once been a time in your life that you thought skeletons were incapable of pouting.  Your son proved you wrong about that every day.  
  
“I wanna burger!  With lots of sauce!  When do we put the sauce on?”  
  
“i like your style.  but we’re supposed to use barbecue sauce.”  
  
Sitka looked down at the bottle, then back up at his dad.  “But this stuff is so much better!”  
  
“i knowww, right?  but it’s three against two.  right, gals?”  
  
You had one arm around Lucida and one arm around Destiny as the three of you sat at the nearby picnic table.  Both girls nodded vigorously.  
  
“I don’t even LIKE ketchup!” Destiny piped up.  
  
“mmmhmm.  that’s ‘cause you’re the milkman’s daughter.”  
  
You almost choked on your soda.  “Sans!  Don’t joke about that!  Besides.  Milkmen haven’t been a thing since my _parents_ were kids.”  
  
“dang, you’re right.  destiny, you’re the fedex delivery guy’s daughter.”  
  
At least the joke seemed to go over her head, despite her being the oldest of your children.  She just looked confused.  
  
“Sans.  You’re confusing the children.”  You gave Destiny a kiss on the head and gently explained, “He’s joking.  He’s saying you can’t be related since you didn’t inherit his love for ketchup.”  
  
“it’s a dominant gene and i’m homozygous for it.  do the math.”  
  
“What does THAT mean?”  Now your daughter was even more confused.  
  
“they’ll teach ya in school.  seventh grade or so, i think.  unless you want me to give you a scientific rundown right now, forget all about the burgers and burn ‘em to a crisp.”  Speaking of which, they were just about done.  Well-done, to be exact.  You preferred closer to medium or medium-rare, but Sans never took any risks with the kids.  He made sure to cook the _shit_ out of any potential bacteria in that meat.  “okay, sitka.  you can pass me the bbq sauce now.”  
  
“…  I still think we should try it with ketchup instead sometime…”  
  
“maybe sometime when it’s just the two of us ketchup-guzzling gremlins.”  
  
Sans poured the correct sauce over the barbecued meats and let them cook for just a little longer to let the flavor soak in without making the brown sugar in it char.  In the meantime, he gave you a cheesy grin and motioned for you to come over to him.  “c’mon, babe.  you know the tradition.”  
  
You approached him, smiling down at him and slipping your hands in his.  “And what tradition is that, my love?”  
  
“read the apron.”  
  
Clearly printed on it were the words, ‘Kiss the Cook!’  
  
“i borrowed it from papyrus.”  
  
“I know you did.  It’s practically dragging on the ground from how big it is on you.”  Regardless, you wrapped your arms around his waist and gave him slow, gentle kiss.  “Mmmwah.  How was that?”  
  
“mmm.  well, that was just one kiss.  and i did cook five burgers, one for each of us…”  
  
You were about to fulfill his request, but Sitka got to it first.  He threw his arm around his dad’s shoulders and clacked his teeth against his dad’s cheek.  Seeing the pattern here, your two daughters also joined in on the fun.  You took a step back to let your three kids totally dogpile their dad with love and kisses.  
  
You couldn’t help but smile at the sound of his surprised laughter and his exclamation of “ah, i love you all bunches!”  You knew this family barbecue had been a good idea.


	30. Summer Drives and Joyrides

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I guess it's an appropriate final drabble because Sans' life with you flashes before his eyes.

Physiologically, Sans didn’t have a heart, but sometimes, it was like you and Papyrus were dead set on giving him a heart attack.  Today was one of those times.  
  
“We’ll be fine, sugar skull,” you reassured your boyfriend as he stood by the side of the sports car wringing his little hands nervously.  
  
“please let me reiterate.  papyrus does not have his driver’s license.”  
  
“Hey.  I’m not judging.  Neither do I.”  You flipped your sunglasses down from the top of your head to over your eyes.  
  
“that…  doesn’t make me feel any better…”  
  
The both of you turned to look as Papyrus, seeing that the roof of the convertible was down, dove into the front seat as if in an action movie.  He, too, donned a pair of sunglasses.  
  
“COOL DUDES ONLY, BROTHER!  SO EITHER GET COOL!  OR GET LOST!”  
  
You smirked and raised an eyebrow at your nervous mess of a boyfriend.  “So?  What’ll it be?”  Smoothly, you reached into the glovebox and offered him a pair of sunglasses to match yours and Papyrus’.  
  
Hesitantly, Sans accepted your offer.  He took the sunglasses and sat his ass in the back seat.  “…  welp.  at least if i’m with you.  and you’re about to crash yourselves into a huge, fiery wreck.  i can either teleport us all to safety or die alongside you.  never have to know the pain of living a day withoutcha.”  
  
“THAT’S THE SPIRIT!” Papyrus cheered him on despite his morbid jesting.  “SUNGLASSES!  ON!”  
  
Sans tried to put the sunglasses on, but they immediately slipped down his face, seeing as how he lacked both the ears that kept them on for you and the dramatic cheekbones that kept them on for Papyrus.  
  
“…  MAYBE YOU CAN JUST HOLD THEM!”  
  
“Nah, I’m on it.”  You’d planned so far ahead, you’d actually brought a small roll of tape with you.  You tore off two pieces and handed them back to Sans.  He was a smart guy.  You didn’t have to tell him what to do with them.  He just sighed and taped the sunglasses to his head so that they wouldn’t fall off again. You couldn’t help but giggle at his image in the rear view mirror.  A sweaty, nervous skeleton man wearing sunglasses over his eyes, which you were sure had pinprick-pupils right about now.  
  
“you two are the light of my life,” he mumbled, gripping the back of your seat.  “i love ya both with all my soul.  and if i had to die any way, i guess dying by your side is _the_ way to go.”  
  
“WE AREN’T GOING TO DIE!  WE DO THIS ALL THE TIME WHEN YOU AREN’T HOME!  DON’T WE?!”  Papyrus shot you a big, innocent grin for confirmation.  
  
“ **you do not.** ”  
  
You shot your boyfriend an apologetic look over your shoulder (not that he could really tell with your sunglasses on), confirming his fears.  “Busted.  Sorry, sweetcheeks.”  
  
“NO NEED TO BE SORRY!  SOON!  SANS WILL SEE WHY IT IS CALLED: A JOYRIDE!”  
  
Sans opened his mouth to say something, but whatever it was, it was drowned out by the screeching of the tires as Papyrus put the pedal to the metal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, I can't believe it's over already. And I can't believe I kept up with it all month, even during finals week! In any case, I'm looking forward to getting back to my longer (and oftentimes much more smutty) works ;D

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Lazy Days](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17061800) by [Alpaca_Keeper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alpaca_Keeper/pseuds/Alpaca_Keeper)




End file.
